


A Winter's Tale

by TheosOxonian



Series: In Faint, Far Hope [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheosOxonian/pseuds/TheosOxonian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Consider this an early Christmas present to a fandom that brings me much joy!  Just a little story in which Robbie watches and pines.<br/> <br/><i>“Anything to suggest it’s murder?” Robbie demanded unrepentantly.  Alright he was in a bit of a temper these days but it was hardly his sodding fault.  The universe had decided to throw an attractive, leggy blonde into his path, make it a bloke and make it his sergeant.  So the universe could bloody well deal with his bad mood."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Robbie filed out of the lecture hall slipping in behind two middle aged women who were chatting quietly together, the tap of their shoes measuring out the long corridor that led into the quad. It had pretty much been what he’d expected; your typical academic type talking about ideas and theories to a bunch of people sat in polite rows. Interesting enough but probably nothing he was likely to make a habit of. 

The women paused at the college gate and he passed them with a polite nod, receiving a half smile in return. Seemed like that was going to be the sum total of his evening, one distracted, half smile. He turned left down Merton Street, winding his way along the cobbled street intending to strike out across the meadows, back toward the station and his car. He thought about phoning James, seeing if he fancied grabbing some fish and chips and maybe a pint, they could deconstruct his evening as James would say. All normal people would have called it moaning or having a chat over a pint. But his bloody overeducated sergeant had dashed out of the office at a little after four with a half wave, his attention unwaveringly glued his phone screen. He’d just have to deconstruct it all himself then. 

The audience hadn’t been quite what he’d expected. Not just a gaggle of middle class people with corduroy jackets and sensible shoes. Quite a few younger faces, some so young they could be nothing but students. A lot of couples, a few groups of friends but enough single folk that he didn’t stand out. Enough people like him, people looking to fill an evening, fill a gap in their knowledge. There’d been a blue haired lass with a midlands accent who’d asked a couple of questions about neo-liberalism. Seemed to needle the lecturer a bit which had instinctively made Robbie warm to her. But there’d been no blonde haired lad to interpret the undercurrents and subtleties of academic rivalries for him. Out here, alone in the gradually dimming evening it was suddenly harder to pretend he hadn’t been scanning the audience for a familiar face. Hadn’t been hoping not to have to leave on his own. 

He sighed, pausing by the wrought iron gates that led down to the river and turned away from his set course. The Bear was close by and he wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. It was daft, a bloke at his age feeling like he did, all off kilter and off balance. No obvious reason for it either, just a lingeringly melancholy, an inexplicable sense of wanting something, of needing something. Like this couldn’t be all there was in life. He really shouldn’t be craving company and staring morosely into pint glasses. Sure, he had drinks with James and Laura, but they’d all too soon go their own way. James had his band and other enigmatic pursuits; Laura her friends and a sister she saw every month or so. People, pursuits. And all he seemed have was tea in front of the telly and conversations with his daughter’s answerphone. 

Which is why the lecture had seemed like a good idea, a way to get out of the house, perhaps meet a few people. Only you didn’t socialise at events like that. Who was he kidding, whatever it was he was missing he wasn’t going to find it in a sodding lecture. Not likely to find it in a pub either he acknowledged ruefully, but he ignored that little voice and pushed open the bar door.

It was crowded inside but that was hardly a surprise. Like half the pubs in Oxford it was old enough to claim links to Shakespeare or Chaucer. And that meant wooden beams and barely enough space to fit two tables. He elbowed his way to the bar and waited to be served. Music drifted in from the beer garden and he peered through the open back door. Seemed like there was some sort of party going on, a large group stretched out across several tables, some sort of impromptu dance floor by the back fence where a redheaded girl was swaying on the spot, clearly trying to encourage someone to join her. Students, he supposed, an ever present hazard in this city.

Finally catching the eye of the bloke behind the bar Robbie ordered a drink and a packet of crisps, hopefully scanning the pub for any space to sit. No chance he realised, and if he tried to claim a bar stool he’d spend the duration of his orange juice being jostled by parched patrons. Beer garden it was then. 

He eased his way out through the back door and perched on the end of a bench at the edge of the group of party-goers. The music was loud, not loud enough for the neighbours to start complaining, but a bit above comfortable nonetheless. He set his drink down and tore open the crisps with more enthusiasm than was probably right. He’d missed having a proper tea. Again. Lynn was always on at him to eat better, but regular meals weren’t exactly straightforward when you got called out at all hours. It had been easier when Val was around, clingfilmed plate left in the fridge with weary acceptance. 

He took a sip of orange juice and glanced around the small beer garden. His foot tapped along to the beat of whatever it was that was playing. He half recognised it, something of Mark’s from yonks back. Muffled tunes that would leak down through the ceiling of a weekend. The redheaded girl was still dancing, curls bouncing as she moved, an odd, half-second echo of the music’s beat and he turned his head to watch. The crowd around her shifted a bit as someone eventually stood up to join her, good natured jeering and encouragement following in his wake. 

Robbie turned back to the table, only to whip his head around in surprise as an all too familiar streak of angled, lanky blonde caught his eye. Bloody hell that was James getting up to dance. With a girl. It was worth repeating. James was dancing. With a girl. Whenever he imagined that side of his partner’s life he always saw a bloke. Someone good looking, bright like James, glasses and smart shoes. But then again he’d never imagined James dancing, so what the hell did he know. 

He watched, wide eyed as James took her hands and they parried back and forth for a few moments, seeking out a rhythm, working out their balance. They were definitely friends, that much was obvious, chatting away as they moved, bantering with those around. Robbie squinted a little, assessing the distance between them, trying to see if they were perhaps more than friends. You never knew with James, could talk the hind leg off a donkey given the right set of circumstances but in other ways he was as close-lipped as a clam. It would be just like him to keep a girlfriend under wraps. Right up until the point the wedding invitation landed in his in-tray. 

They paused a little as the song changed, assessing the music before easing back into their little duet. They didn’t look to be all that close really, distance always maintained between their bodies, attention on the wider group rather than each other. A strange sense of relief swept through him. Never liked it when James was secretive with him, it never ended well. He turned to watch, resettling himself on the bench, back against the table, legs kicked out toward a potted shrub that had seen better days. 

An unexpected tinge of melancholy threatened at the edge of his thoughts but he carefully ignored it. He could mourn his lost youth later, right now he was going to enjoying watching James like this, seeing a side of him he wouldn’t otherwise know. James moved well he realised. Or he seemed to, from what he could see of his head and shoulders. Shouldn’t be a surprise given how into his music he was. Not like you played a £3000 guitar if you couldn’t keep to a beat. 

And he was smiling. Properly smiling. Not like the way he looked at work with those sardonic, half little smiles that could mean anything and usually masked everything. No here he looked…well free. He couldn’t help but smile in response. He’d never seen James like that; never been able to make him so relaxed, so at ease. That realisation made him sad. Deeply sad in a way he didn’t entirely understand. 

The group around James shifted again as several blokes headed inside, toward the bar. He could see James clearly now, the whole long length of him, right from his too tight t-shirt all the way down his denim clad legs. 

Lewis’ mouth was suddenly dry and he took a long swig of his drink. Christ, how the hell did he make a simple pair of jeans look so bloody indecent. Hanging low on those too slim hips, a belt and sheer hope the only things defying gravity. And yes, James did move well. Really bloody well, why the entire pub wasn’t out here watching God only knew. Slim hips rolling, glimpses of soft grey cotton and ivory pale skin. Flat stomach, lightly muscled chest and arms, a rower’s body.

Lewis felt his breath quicken and his blood rush to all sorts of interesting places. His hands itched to reach out and hold those hips, to feel James move against him, beneath him. The melancholy followed sharp on the heels of his interest and he turned away. Nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. The bottom of an orange juice glass wasn’t quite the bottom of a pint glass, but it was all he had to work with. 

He bumped into the bloke sitting next to him as he turned back to his seat. He looked up to apologise and met the eyes of a grey haired man that widened as they took in his accent. The man sat back a little and watched him with a studied casualness that set his nerves alert. 

“Is she your daughter?” he asked. 

“What?” Robbie said, unusually perplexed by the question. 

“The girl, is she your daughter?”

“The redhead?” Robbie asked with a glance over his shoulder and a shake of his head. He picked out a crisp, keen to discourage the conversation. 

“Him you’re interested in then?” the bloke asked, all polite and bland in his enquiry. 

Robbie took a moment to study the man. For all his grey hair he wasn’t actually that old. Younger than him. Older than James. Some hinterland between the two of them. “You think I’m the kind of bloke that hangs around pubs staring at young men?” he asked with a gentle tilt of his head. A thread of warning weaving through his words. Answering a question with a question, sure sign of evasion, and the bloke seemed to know it if the twitch of his lips was anything to go by. 

“You seemed interested that’s all,” he observed, tipping his glass toward where James was still dancing.

Robbie thought about denying the accusation, but then it was true wasn’t it? The way he’d been feeling lately, his unexplained yearning for something more, his relief that James wasn’t dancing with that girl. It all added up to one fairly obvious conclusion that he was tired of denying. 

“He just looks…happy,” Robbie offered when it became clear the bloke was waiting for some sort of explanation. “Don’t often see people like that anymore. Everyone’s too busy or too cool or too something anyway.”

Beside him the man relaxed glancing over Robbie shoulder toward James. Blue eyes lightened as the careful casualness gave way to something more. “Yes he does look happy,” he agreed, his tone showing something of surprise. 

“He’s not usually happy?” Robbie questioned, his interest in the conversation peaking as he realised the man knew James, must belong to the party in some way. 

“James? Who knows,” came the wry response, “he’s rather self contained.”

“He doesn’t look self contained,” Robbie observed as he twisted around, eyes drawn inexorably to those fluid, undulating hips. He felt himself flush and kept his head steadfastly turned away. 

“He doesn’t often dance,” the man observed as he stood up and ambled away. 

“Maybe he should do it more often,” Robbie suggested to his retreating back. 

He watched with an odd sense of detachment as his conversation partner approached James, resting a causal hand on his shoulder, leaning in close to be heard above the music. The flare of jealousy was hardly a surprise. He’d felt it before, the times James was friendly with suspects or witnesses, all those times at Crevecour and with the McEwan case when there’d been people who knew James before him, knew James without him. It was sharper now the feeling was no longer anonymous, now it had a name. 

“Hello,” James said as he collapsed onto the bench next to Robbie, flushed and still smiling, his skin all pinked and rosy. “Father Paul said you were here.”

“That was a priest?” Robbie asked in surprise, glancing over to the man who was now stood next to the large patio heater.

“Yup,” James confirmed with a nod, “he’s gone incognito tonight. Don’t tell the archdeacon.”

“Alright,” Robbie agreed easily, “If I ever meet an archdeacon my lips are sealed.” 

“First time for everything I suppose, you’re normally very keen to vent your spleen at any unsuspecting member of the clergy that stumbles across your path,” James said with an unrepentant grin.

“Only the ones that wont co-operate with my murder inquiries,” Lewis pointed out. 

“No, even the ones that do,” James corrected.

“Well now, I was going to offer to buy you a drink, but I’m starting to reconsider that impulse,” Robbie grumbled. 

“Too late,” James said with a wide grin as he downed the last of his drink and thrust his glass toward Robbie. “Pint of Night Watchman please.” And in the face of that smile Robbie found he could do nothing other than obey. 

“Come on then,” he instructed as he stood up and made his way back to the bar, wholly gratified when James followed without question. 

“So what are you doing here?” Robbie asked as they stood waiting to be served, forced close together in the press of bodies.

“We’re having an ironic 80’s party,” James offered.

“Course you are,” Lewis agreed. “A what?” he asked a beat later. 

James’ lips twitched. Lewis watched his face but he betrayed no more reaction, he’d never know whether James was on his way to one of those sardonic smiles or something more real. It was more disappointing than he was ready to acknowledge. 

“Apparently the 80’s were such an awful cultural phenomenon it is now only possible to enjoy them ironically,” James explained as Lewis handed over a tenner to the barman. 

“Say’s who?” Lewis demanded.

“Nick,” James said with a nod toward a short, stocky man stood several feet away holding a newly acquired pint of guinness. “It’s his birthday and he spent the 80’s at uni so apparently he should know,” James offered with all the tell tale signs of a well worn argument. 

“He was at uni all the 80’s?” Lewis asked as they moved back out toward the beer garden, “All ten years of it?”

“Probably longer,” James agreed as they settled at a table. “The lifestyle one used to be able to live on the largesse of the state. Now it’s all student loans and debts and league tables,” he said mournfully. 

“Give over, like you need any more degrees than you’ve already got,” Lewis objected. 

“I only have two actually,” James said with a shrug, that’s hardly anything to write home about these days. So what did you do in the 80’s then sir?”

“I raised my kids,” Lewis said momentarily awash with memories of birthday parties, bikes and a living room floor littered with lego and colouring pens. There was the expected sting of lonely nostalgia, a feeling so familiar he barely registered it anymore. Yet it didn’t fade like it normally did, instead it deepened as James eyes met his and held and he suddenly had no idea whether he was mourning what he’d lost or what he’d never have. 

“Raised the kids and worked to pay for Nick’s education apparently,” he added briskly. 

James’ eyes slid away from his and he fell oddly silent. 

“What?” Lewis prompted, unable to fathom why his words could have caused James’ mood to shift so dramatically. And although he’d asked the question the chances of James answering it were 50/50 at best. The chances of it being an answer he understood were dramatically less. 

“I spent the 80’s learning to walk,” James offered with a sad, resigned little smile that Lewis didn’t understand. 

God he was an enigma at times. A young, beautiful enigma. He could admit that now for all the good it would do him. Young, beautiful James who was so far out of his league he might as well be in another division. Young, beautiful James who lead him to torture sporting metaphors. He contemplated their relationship as they sat in silence. He’d always thought of most relationships as like those venn diagrams from school. People in their own worlds, overlapping with the others they met. Some barely touching but others sharing ever so much space. The whole thing weaving together in a complicated mess of lines and colour. 

With Val it wasn’t so much that she intersected with him, rather that she settled over him, settled around him. He didn’t really know how it was with James. Some days it seemed that James slotted right into him, filled all the gaps and the echoey spaces inside him. Complementing and completing him as they worked in easy harmony, their own verbal and cognitive dance around suspects and superintendents. But other days, when James got all snarky and his face looked like he’d swallowed a wasp Robbie wasn’t sure they were even on the same page, let alone in the same orbit. Days when they might as well have been strangers for all the understanding they shared. 

What ever they were, they were a right pair. Not fifteen minutes ago James had been happily enjoying his ironic party and now he was propping up a table with his sad old governor. He clearly wasn’t a good influence, dragging James right down into his bout of existential flu. 

“You didn’t get another drink,” James pointed out as Robbie shook off his momentary misery. 

“No,” Lewis agreed, “turns out I’m a one orange juice man.”

“It’s good to know your limits,” James agreed sagely. 

Limits indeed, Robbie thought as he twirled his empty glass between his fingers. He was suddenly so very aware of where he ended and where James began, of the table that lay between them. The limits of propriety that stopped him from reaching out. The rank and profession that defined their roles and set their orbits. Beyond the limits of credulity that they could be anything other than they were. 

“I could get you something else?” James offered. 

Robbie declined with a shake of his head, suddenly so very tired. Not able to face the distance between them any more, how many more misunderstandings and lost moments the evening might bring. 

“Nah you get back to your party, I’ll head off home. Don’t worry about being in too early,” he offered with a smile. James acknowledged the offer with a nod and rose smoothly, stepping out, over the bench and ambling back from whence he came. 

The city was quiet as Robbie left the pub, the sky overhead the pale, half dark of a summer night. He turned south and walked back toward the station, watching heavy, dark clouds rise in the east and wondering whether it would rain. 

He spent the night sleeping fitfully and wondering how on earth Father Paul had known to send James over to him. 

***

The dawn broke to drizzle. Robbie ate breakfast and watched the washing line sway in the wind, scattering erratic drops over the rain slicked flags. Bloody English weather, it had been sunny yesterday. Monty had curled up out there letting the sun-soaked warmth ease him to sleep. He reached down and stroked an apology across the cat’s silky fur, as though the weather was somehow his fault. The clouds had followed him home and deepened over night. Now here he was, tired and confused and the weather had gone to shit. James would call it a portent. Or something fancier. An augur maybe, that was the same kind of thing, wasn’t it?

He stacked the washing up by the sink and left it to amuse itself for the day. He drove to work past damp hedgerows and damper people, the windscreen wipers a keeping a steady, sibilant beat. 

Despite his words the night before James was already in the office when he arrived, witness statement in hand, biro in his mouth. Robbie’s eyes were drawn to his mouth, to the slight stretch of his lips around the pen. He wondered idly what excuse he could muster to join James for his smoke breaks. 

“I’ve been thinking,” James offered by way of greeting and Robbie offered the obligatory, expected snort as he hung up his dripping jacket. When don’t you ever lad, when don’t you ever.

“We need to stop solving crimes.”

“How’s that then?” Robbie asked as he settled into his desk, carefully avoiding James’ eyes.

“You hate paperwork. I hate paperwork. Solving crimes creates paperwork, so we need to stop solving crimes.”

“You love paperwork,” Robbie pointed out opening the nearest file and beginning to read the first bit of paper he found. “You’ve got systems and treasury tags and those little post it note things.”

“Index-flags,” James corrected automatically. “Alright point taken but I hate having to prepare the cases for the lawyers, it’s boring. 

“It is,” Robbie agreed confused by the numbers that stared up at him. This wasn’t part of their last case. Was it? He dug a bit further, leafing through the papers that seemed to make up some kind of report. 

“Statistical analysis of departmental performance,” James said with a grin as he turned back to his own work.

“What? Why?” Robbie asked.

“Careful sir, it’s incisive questioning like that that solves crimes. And creates paperwork,” James observed with a smirk. “Chief Superintendent Innocent’s dedication to your on-going edification?” he offered with shrug of his shoulders as Robbie frowned. 

“Doesn’t she normally email these things,” Robbie asked, his distaste and disinterest all too clear. 

“Yes, and I believe she did just that to the rest of CID,” James agreed.

“But she printed mine?” Robbie asked. He wasn’t quite sure how to take that fact but he had half a mind to be offended. 

“I’d consider it a victory,” James advised, “you’ve finally forced her to acknowledge your neo-luddite tendencies.”

“My what?” Robbie asked.

“Neo-luddism,” James said without lifting his head from the paperwork, “a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the computer age.“

Robbie thought for a moment before deciding there was absolutely no response to that. He pushed Innocent’s file to edge of his desk and reached for their own paperwork letting the office settle into a studious quiet. 

He tried to concentrate on the work but he found himself too easily distracted, painfully aware of all of James’ movement. The scratch of his pen against paper, the rapid fire clicking as he typed away, each twitch and flex of his body. James left the office at semi-regular intervals, returning with files, coffee or just the lingering scent of tobacco. Robbie sat back and watched him return from the kitchen, mug held in both hands, suit jacket hiding his hips in frustrating shadows. 

James placed the drink on his desk and lingered for a moment, running his fingers around the rim of the mug. Robbie risked a glance upward and found James watching him, offering a shy, gentle smile. “Tea,” he said gravely.

“Yes,” Robbie agreed just as solemnly.

James nodded, clearly satisfied with the response and loped back to his own desk. Robbie revised his opinion, enigma didn’t go half-way to explaining James bloody Hathaway. He took a sip of the drink and tried to ignore the tingly knowledge that a moment ago James’ fingers had been where his lips were now. 

“What’s an augur sergeant?” Robbie asked at some point mid-afternoon. 

“A religious official in ancient Rome who interpreted the will of the gods by observing natural phenomenon, often the behaviour of birds,” James offered promptly. “Some people have suggested Richard Bach’s book Jonathon Livingston Seagull was a post modern reflection on the concept.”

“So they warned of bad luck, bad omens?” Robbie clarified.

“Or they gave news of good omens,” James agreed as he glanced up from his reading a quiet, questioning look on his face. 

“And rain, that would be a bad a omen, a bad sign to an augur?”

James shrugged. “I’d say it depends on whether you were planning a wash day or you wanted your runner-beans to grow.”

Robbie huffed and settled back to his paperwork muttering something suspicious about bloody gods, mysterious ways and damn sergeants.


	2. Chapter 2

Robbie slammed his car door with more force than was strictly necessary and picked his way across the uneven ground at the side of Hinksey Stream. The early morning sunlight was dimmer here beneath the trees, the collection of suited technicians in the river bed crouched in dappled shade.

James stood to one side watching proceedings with a desultory air. His suit jacket was thrown casually over a tree branch, shirt sleeves shoved haphazardly toward his elbows. Robbie let his eyes linger a moment, drinking in the sight of his relaxed and heat rumpled sergeant. It was a pleasant picture alright. His pale skin had a splash of colour, made him look softer, more human somehow. 

He carefully ignored the instinct to reach out and touch. The impulse was a permanent presence these days and it took more energy than he cared to admit to keep it in check. It was bloody exhausting actually, he seemed to spend half his time trying to get near to James and the other half reminding himself why he shouldn’t. That wasn’t to mention the half he spent watching or thinking about James. And if that was one to many halves well it might go someway to explaining his mood. And his temper. Too many bloody halves to juggle. There was a reason foolish crushes were for the young, only they had the energy to deal with it all. 

It wasn’t just the sun though, back before the weather had broken James had seemed different. Calmer, happier, more relaxed. He’d all but lost that prickly air of his, and it would have taken a saint not to be drawn in, be drawn closer to the man beneath. It was bloody disconcerting. It was more disconcerting that nobody else seemed to notice. And worst of all the more flustered and out of sorts he got the more cheerful James became. Like they were trapped in some odd universe of their own where everything had to balance. Or like that play with the picture in the attic.

A cigarette smouldered in James hand, smoke coiling around his fingers and wrist, barely rising in the airless early morning. Robbie shifted position, keen to watch James in profile, to follow the arc of hand to lips, the momentary hollow of his cheeks, the pursed exhale. He knew it was ludicrous to be watching like this and more than a little questionable on the ethics front. But he’d done all the internal wrestling he thought the situation deserved, and come to the conclusion that indulging it seemed more honest than denying it. He wasn’t about to start behaving like some wet behind the ears teenager trying to sneak furtive glances when no one was looking. 

It was an honesty of sorts and he was sticking with it for the moment. Odd thing was James didn’t seem to mind. He’d caught him at it a few times and had done nothing more than gaze back at him with those unreadable blue eyes. Lewis had stared right back, trying to puzzle out the meaning in his gaze, right up until the moment embarrassment forced his eyes away. 

Robbie pressed forward, his shoes kicking up a light cloud of dust. Catching the movement James turned toward him, tossing the cigarette into the undergrowth with barely a twitch of his fingers. 

“That’s a £75 fixed penalty notice right there,” Robbie grumbled, squashing down his disappointment as he took the last few steps toward their crime scene, toward James. 

“Do you want to write it up or shall I find us an amenable community support worker?” James asked evenly. Robbie grunted in response and peered down at the body in the river. Woman. Badly decomposed. Probably not killed here but the water would have buggered everything up even if she had been. Evidence half way to London by now. 

“What have we got?” Robbie demanded.

“Unknown victim suffered unknown fate at some point as yet, unknown,” James summarised.

“Bloody great,” Robbie muttered. Ninety minutes since the call first came in and they still knew sod all. He really wasn’t in the mood for another mystery, not when he had a six foot one standing right next to him. Which was a shame really, given his job, mysteries were rather stock in trade. Maybe it really was time to retire, leave the complications of life to the young. Like James. 

“Have you got anything worth knowing Laura?” he asked, raising his voice as though that would someway drown out his thoughts.

“Plenty thank you,” Laura responded sharply, bristling at his brusque tone, “but very little about the body if that’s what you’re so politely inquiring about.”

“Anything to suggest it’s murder?” Robbie demanded unrepentantly. Alright he was in a bit of a temper these days but it was hardly his sodding fault. The universe had decided to throw an attractive, leggy blonde into his path, make it a bloke and make it his sergeant. So the universe could bloody well deal with his bad mood. 

Laura paused in her work and straightened up, lifting her eyes to survey the two of them on the bank. “No,” she said with a shake of her head, “but nothing to suggest it isn’t either.”

“You must know something,” Robbie insisted. He was getting old. Sod that, he was old. Everything seemed difficult and nothing straightforward, his whole world a mass of complications he hadn’t asked for. Just once he’d like a straightforward case, a straightforward conversation. A path to walk that wasn’t shadowed and winding. 

“After twenty years of working together why do you persist in believing I’m Mystic Meg?” she demanded and Robbie sighed, recognising the early signs of a well practiced rant.

“Triumph of hope over experience,” James interrupted sagely as he scrambled down the river bank to take possession of the two clear plastic bags being proffered. “It’s a terrible thing. As I believe John Cleese’s character observed in Clockwise.”

“Watch and a ring,” Laura summarised, ignoring James’ comments. “And be grateful I’m letting you have those, get them to the labs as soon as you’re done with them,” she added in warning as she turned back to her work. “By the way there’s no identifying marks on either item nor on the victim. Let’s see whether you can come up with an identity before I come up with a cause and time of death shall we?” 

James raised an eyebrow as he shared a glance with Robbie and scrambled back up the bank with long legged grace. Robbie thrust out a hand to take the evidence bags and was surprised when long fingers tangled with his own. He took James’ weight for a moment, the pair of them counterbalanced in simple harmony, warm, soft skin pressed against his own. James righted himself slowly, following Robbie’s hand as he tried to pull away, crowding close. Robbie knew he should take a step away, assert at least some distance between them. But he was tired, so bloody tired of fighting this attraction, of denying just how good it felt to be stood here. Right here, with James rightly close. He sighed and felt his body slump as he breathed deep. God he smelt good, the sharp citrus scent of his shower gel and that indefinable aftershave he always wore. Made him want to bury his face in James’ neck and do all manner of things that would frighten the horses. 

“Come on sir,” that eloquent voice instructed, the deep tones doing nothing to ease the ache inside him. “You’ve poked the bear in its den and now we have a point to prove.”

“Isn’t it poke the lion in it’s den?” Lewis asked distractedly. 

“Technically it’s neither,” James said with a shrug, “beard the lion in its den, poke the bear with a stick.”

“Not like you to mangle a quote,” Lewis observed.

“Not unintentionally no,” James agreed with an enigmatic smile. 

“Eh?” Lewis questioned eloquently, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He glanced up to find James watching him with that expression. He was coming to bloody hate that expression. Except for the fact that it sent his stomach spinning. 

“Identity before post mortem results remember,” James prompted his voice oddly gentle as he declined to answer the question. He stepped away, his hand finally, slowly withdrawing. “It’s a matter of professional pride now, and those missing person reports wont read themselves.”

“No, I suppose not,” Robbie agreed dully as he watched James lope away, picking his way easily back to the parked cars. Christ knows why the lad hadn’t answered the question but Lewis had half a mind that it was somehow significant, and that James was expecting him to figure out the answer on his own. Well there went yet another odd moment between the two of them. He’d add it to the ever lengthening list. 

He shoved his hands in his pocket, knowing that the glance of fingers across his wrist could be nothing more than wishful thinking. He sighed deeply and followed James’ footprints across the dew-damp grass. 

***  
Robbie settled back against the bench seat of the pub and took a long sip of his pint as James settled down next to him, kicking out his long legs underneath the table, feet crossed at his ankles. Red socks peaked out from above some expensive looking sneaker things with barely any sole. He was dressed in jeans and some short sleeved hoodie. The stuff he wore off duty made him look so different. Not young exactly, but ageless somehow, like he could walk into a college bar or go and attend an academics house party and fit right in with either group. He’d nipped home to change and collect his precious guitar, which apparently was deserving of a seat all of its own. Extra band practice for some reason or other. Robbie wondered who would be there. That Nick bloke presumably. Maybe the redhead and Father Paul. He’d never seen James play his guitar, watch those fingers pick out chords and tunes or whatever it was he did. He’d heard the music that one time, seemed all fancy and rippley, not exactly Midnight Addiction or Dire Straights. Not his kind of thing at all really, but he quite fancied the idea of seeing them at least once. He wondered what they did at practice. Rehearsal. Whatever. Wondered which James they got to see. Whether he was all snark and edge if they got something wrong, or simply relaxed and happy all wrapped around his guitar. More likely just focussed and intense, the way he got when something absorbed all his attention. 

He itched to ask James about it, about his friends, about that redhead. But he couldn’t come up with a set of questions that didn’t make him sound like a nosy copper, like he was prying into something that wasn’t his business. That was the thing with James, if he wanted you to know something, he’d straight up tell you. But the things he didn’t say were best left well alone. 

James set down his drink down with a satisfied sigh and smiled at him. “That’s more like it,” he offered in comment.

“Aye,” Robbie agreed feelingly. It had been a long week. In an even longer month. They never had identified that body and it was nagging at both of them. Whoever she’d been, she deserved her name at least, even if they might never be sure what happened to her. The post mortem had been inconclusive and he and Laura had negotiated an unspoken ceasefire over dinner and a pint. Innocent was on at them to add it to the cold case list, made some speech about resources that had made James’ lips curl up in distaste. He was cheerfully ignoring all her hints and practicing his blithely ignorant act. Between that and some careful avoidance of the station they’d been able to keep on at it longer than expected. They couldn’t keep it up for ever, not with all the new cases that seemed to be winging their way. Summer holidays. Kids off school. Families forced together. It always caused a surge in violent crime. It was the kind of depressing fact you learned in a job like theirs. Maybe they were both better off bumbling around without partners, without families. Less likely to end up on the wrong end of a fist. Less likely to be the fist. 

Robbie tried to turn his mind from work. He glanced around the pub, picking out the couples, those who were just friends, the groups of colleagues, the odd lone drinker over by the bar. He wondered what he and James looked like. He sipped his pint and contemplated the coming weekend and tried not to let his mood fall. Lynn was on the night shift again. If he got up early tomorrow he might catch her as she got home, hear how things were at her end. Try and find something interesting to offer about his own life. Christ he needed a hobby, an interest. Something. Anything to stop another weekend of cleaning, cooking and wondering about James. Wondering if he would be out running or out on the river now the weather was picking up. He kept hoping this attraction or whatever it was would run its course, but there didn’t seem much chance of that happening any time soon. 

“Got any plans?” he found himself asking.

“You know me Sir,” James said in a deadpan tone, “more plans than you could shake a stick at. There’s some sleeping to be done, coffee to be drunk, wash loads to put through the machine, telly to watch. In fact there’s a BBC3 programme on Norse warriors I want to catch,” he said, his voice suddenly more animated. 

“What, gap in your knowledge it is?” Lewis asked dryly. 

“Compared to my classical education, yes.” James agreed. “I know the basics of course, the mythology, the culture. Bits of etymology, their impact on Britain, but it never hurts to brush up. Did you know for instance that the word beserk comes from Norse?”

“Does it now,” Robbie said noncommittally as he took another sip of his pint and settled in for the coming explanation. It was a well rehearsed set of steps between them, his grumpy acceptance of the lectures and James’ defensive attitude to his knowledge. It would never do to admit he liked these little speeches, liked seeing glimpses of the worlds inside James’ head. And James would never accept that he was quite willing to listen. He liked a challenge too much, liked to think he’d had to work a little to get his old boss’ attention. Of course these days that was total bollocks. James could have recited the 1990 Environmental Protection Act and he’d have happily listened. 

“It does,” James confirmed. “Berserkers, or sometimes berserks were Norse warriors most often reported in the older literature who were said to have fought in an uncontrollable, trance like fury.”

“Think I’ve met some drunks like that,” Robbie commented. 

“Doubtless,” James agreed, “you know none of the sources make reference to any specific rituals but it seems quite likely that that something was used to engineer the mind-altered state. Drink as you say, or perhaps a psychotropic plant.”

“Well, what do you know,” Robbie offered, although of course in full flow James needed no actual encouragement. But making noise was the polite way to go about these things. 

“They were associated with the god Odin,” James observed. “Some of the sagas suggest they wore the pelt of a wolf when they entered battle rather than a mailshirt. But originally and more commonly they’re associated with bears. That’s what the word means,” he continued, “a serkr was a kind of shirt or coat and ber means bear. Hence berserker, one who wears the pelt of a bear. There’s a helm-press I saw once in the British Museum that depicts Odin with a berserker, or at least I assume that’s what the furry animal with a shield and a spear was meant to be.” 

“So the word bear is Norse originally?” Robbie asked, a little distractedly. He let his mind wander for a moment. James seemed to like bears lately, he managed to mention them at least once a week. There was something about that observation that was niggling at him, piquing his finely honed copper’s instinct. The lad was odd at times, but he’d never before referenced a specific animal quite so often. Course, he could just be reading a book about them, but this was James, and nothing was ever that straight forward.

“Sort of,” James corrected with a slight wince. “technically it comes from the old English bera, which belongs to wider family of names for the bear in Germanic languages that interestingly originate from an adjective meaning brown.”

“So berserk really just means wearing a brown coat?” Robbie demanded with a raised eyebrow. That was the other thing about these lectures. Some level of derision was required at some point. 

“Taken literally, yes,” James agreed with a well practiced glare. “But you can’t treat totems like that, they have symbolic, not literal or evidential power. It’s less about the bearskin, and more about the attitude you adopt when wearing it. To go berserk, to lose oneself in the attitude of the animal.”

“This is you knowing a bit is it?” Robbie asked, “God help me on Monday when you’ve actually revised.”

James shrugged and slouched further in his seat, the tips of his shoes brushing up against Robbie’s. “I like etymology, it’s fascinating. I’m always amazed at how bits of old languages survive in regional dialects and vocabularies. We’re such a small country and yet the dialects haven’t died out. Geordie is a good example.”

“Is it?” Robbie asked, perking up a little at the idea that his accent was of interest to James. It might only be a passing intellectual interest but he’d take what he could get. 

James nodded, “It’s mostly Anglo-Saxon remnants I think, Norse words are rarer. A lot of the northern dialects retain Anglo-Saxon words; bairn for instance, a thousand years after the Norman conquest and the word remains in common use, no signs of it being Latinised or anglicised. And a lot of the pronunciation is a bastardisation of Danish. I heard once that native Danish speakers find English in a North-East accent the easiest to understand as they share a common tonality. Your pronunciation of home, for instance, is remarkably similar to the Danish hjem.”

“Home James,” Robbie offered, gratified by the indulgent glance James sent his way. “Why is Norse rarer?” he asked.

“Combination of factors,” James mused. “The Norse are essentially the Vikings, they’re raiders and traders, whereas the Anglo-Saxons were a more settled and stable society for a longer time, so they left a greater legacy. Lass is probably the most common Norse word, it comes from lasqar meaning unmarried woman.”

“Huh,” Robbie responded intelligently. “How do you know all this?” he demanded. What James knew never ceased to amaze him. Mind, there were times when it never ceased to annoy him as well. 

James shrugged again. “My head has a tendency to retain information whether I want it to or not.” He paused and reached into his pocket, drawing out the ever present cigs and a lighter. He tapped out one of the thin sticks and tossed the packed onto the table, “You know, I once tried to train my brain out of the habit of remembering things,” he offered, his voice quieter, confessional. The cigarette flittered restlessly between his fingers. “Didn’t work,” he concluded.

“Evidently,” Robbie agreed lightly and he watched James’ lips flicker at the warmth in his voice. 

“Anyway, how do you train away intelligence?” Robbie asked, “wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”

“Memory, not intelligence,” James corrected. “And no it’s not really. I was working on the now incorrect assumption that the brain is largely immutable after childhood, and therefore has limited space in which to store information. So I spent a week watching really inane telly and reading magazines to see what proper knowledge might get shoved out in order to make space.”

“And?” Robbie demanded.

“And,” James said dryly, “by the end of the week on top of everything I previously knew and still do know, I had a working knowledge of complementary colours in both home decorating and women’s fashion, knew the plots lines of several antipodean soap operas and could probably give a passable lecture on the combustion engine.”

“Well the engine’s hardly useless information,” Robbie objected.

“No,” James agreed, “by the Wednesday I was so bored I let myself watch an open university programme. Tell you what I didn’t know by the end of that week,” he offered conversationally, “is why anyone could think airing personal problems to an ex-actress in front of a studio audience was a good idea. Still don’t,” he added.

Robbie huffed. Trisha. Val and Lynn had been right into that. He’d never seen the point. Saw enough drama at work without voluntarily watching it at home. 

“So your experiment failed?” 

“Total failure,” James agreed cheerfully as he stood up. “I even ended up doing some reading around neuroplasticity and the difference between episodic and procedural memory.”

“As you do,” Robbie agreed as James offered him a half smile and ambled off to smoke his cigarette. As Robbie watched him go a strong sense of wrongness settled over him. That little story was so uniquely James, oddly comic that he’d ended up learning more, truly sad that he felt the need to forget in the first place. He shouldn’t be wandering off on his own, after that. He should be sat down beside him, in arms reach, right where he could keep an eye on him. He watched James’ through the window, the back of his head dipping and weaving between panes, wondered what it would be like to card his fingers through the strands. He tracked him as he wound his way back through the pub, twisting around the other patrons, the odd touch to a shoulder, the dip of his hips as he eased into a space at the bar. Watched as those long fingers curled around their pint glasses. 

“You’re staring,” James observed as he paused by their table. 

“Yes,” Robbie agreed, the admission strangely easy. 

James nodded, as though content with the response. He slipped into his seat, easing around his guitar. He sat closer this time, legs and shoulders brushing. They rested together, trading conversation back and forth, the gentle heat of James’ bare arm gradually working its way through the cotton of his shirt, settling into his bones. That scent was there again. A little different now, the citrus almost faded at this time of the day, a hint of newly laundered clothes. 

“What aftershave do you wear?” he asked, tongue loosened and mind ill-disciplined. 

James shifted in his seat, sitting up straighter as he turned his head to face him. 

“I don’t wear aftershave, I never have. Don’t like the smell,” he said simply. And though his words might be simple, those eyes bloody well weren’t. That expression was there again, the one he didn’t know how to read. The one that was open and inquisitive and yet seemed to bore into him, to demand something from him. What he wouldn’t give for a Hathaway to English dictionary. 

The moment lengthened and he felt that embarrassment begin to grow. Bloody hell might as well be a wet behind the ears kid for all the maturity he felt now. It was bloody stupid getting himself all het up over a pretty face. Except it wasn’t just a pretty face, it was a pretty face and a lithe body and a mind that fascinated him. It was the whole bloody package. 

“Why are you here James,” he asked softly, suddenly all too aware of all the places James could be. It was a Friday night for pity’s sake. Band practice notwithstanding he could anywhere, should be anywhere that wasn’t that wasn’t a pub. With his boss. 

“Where else would I be?” James asked gently. Simple tone. Fathomless eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The break through came six weeks later. Ilsa Bakker. A Norwegian student at Baliol who was finally reported missing when she failed to show up for the start of term. Friends assumed she’d gone home for the summer, family thought she was travelling. Likely as not no one would ever know why and how she ended her days in a stream bed hundreds of miles from home. 

It was the kind of case he hated. Unexplained deaths, unknown people, passings unmarked. Ilsa would get her funeral now, but so many didn’t. People who simply fell from life and were never missed.

James took over the final admin with a knowing, kind efficiency. Liaised with the Leiden police. Sent though the post mortem report with its many words and few answers. Even fielded a call from the distressed father. Robbie wandered back into their office toward the end of it, listened as James carefully picked his way through the facts of the case. Or picked his way through most of them anyway. He skipped right past the possibility of deliberate violence. Lying by omission. 

“Interesting take on things,” Robbie offered as James put the phone down and slumped forward, resting head in hands. 

“We’re never going to know what happened,” James pointed out with a shrug, his voice as tired as the set of his shoulders. “They don’t need to spend the rest of their lives wondering whether and how their daughter met a painful and violent end. It could have been an accident, so why not let them believe that? Most people find fate easier to accept than human evil.”

“Maybe,” Robbie said, far from convinced. Not like Val’s death would have been easier to accept if she’d simply stepped out in front of a bus.

He wondered if it would make any difference to Ilsa’s parents, whether it really was kind to lie like that. Wasn’t the truth better, no matter how much it hurt? And what as all that bollocks about fate, he didn’t put any store by it and he doubted James did either. Fate was just a word people used to hide from the fact that the universe didn’t give a shit about you. Surely James believed in God and faith, not fate. 

“Would you ever lie to me like that?” Robbie asked as he leant against the edge of his desk. A tension slipped over him, James’ answer suddenly, ridiculously important.

“What protect you from the truth?” James clarified, glancing up as Robbie nodded. James watched him quizzically for a moment before shaking his head. “No,” he said straightforwardly. He paused, clearly considering several further responses. No doubt trying to work out if this was a time for facetious teasing, rueful self-mocking or perhaps one of their rarer moments of personal honestly. 

“I don’t think you’d ever quite forgive me,” James eventually offered, “no matter how justified my intentions.” The impossibility of living with that went unsaid. 

Robbie smiled at him, an odd, giddy feeling washing through him, warming him. James could lie with impressive, alarming proficiency. He’d watched him deceive suspects and senior officers alike. Never bothered him until the day it was turned on him and a stranger stared out from James’ skin. He’d known they were years beyond those times, but it was a relief to hear it confirmed. Even better to hear that James understood him, knew his heart.  
Even better to know that James needed his regard, his forgiveness.

Across the office James ran his hands through his hair. It was going through one of its longer phases. He preferred it like that, liked the hint of a curl, the softer waves. Liked the errant strands that fell over his forehand. Adored the way it could stick up at all angles when he was rumpled or dishevelled. The way he got at the end of a long day or during early morning call outs, those times when the world ambushed him a little too hard. Pathetic though it was the possibility of seeing James at less than his best, of seeing the man rather than the mask made it easier to drag himself out of bed. 

He knew he was staring again but frankly he was past caring. The weeks and months had rolled by and his feelings for James showed no signed of abating. All those things he felt for the lad were unchanged. He still wanted to know what that pale skin felt like, wanted to kiss and touch and lie down with the lad. Wanted to be the reason why that poise and control were stripped away. He’d watched a travel programme on Avignon the other day. Imagined what it would be like to be there with him, to stroll its winding, sun-baked streets with a walking Wikipedia at his side. Imagined continental beers and strong, short coffees. Street cafes and restaurants in ancient squares, the white limestone of the papal palace watching over them.

Pointless, painful fantasies.

***

The rest of October passed quickly, its crisp, biting air giving way to a muddy, damp November. James bought his grandson a book for Christmas and Robbie found himself reading all about a bear hunt. He returned to the book when Jack was in bed, flicking through the pages, the illustrations of the sea strangely, hauntingly evocative. He was a little sorry to leave it at Lynn’s when he returned home, felt as through he was leaving something important behind. Something James was trying to tell him, something he was supposed to understand. 

James watched him all of January. The awareness crept up on him gradually. Little things at first, sideways glances as they drove to crime scenes, assessing looks over the rim of a pint glass. He enjoyed the sharp hint of expectation that he some times saw, the way James wet his lips as though about to speak. Robbie let the pleasant weight of it all settle around him, let it steady and ground him, easing his mood back toward its usual, tolerable, affable state. 

If it were even possible James relaxed further, mirroring his temperament, and they pottered around Oxford together irrepressibly content. Innocent watched them suspiciously, a pinched look gathering around her eyes, wearily waiting for whatever trouble they were going to cause her. James cast him furtive, knowing smiles, shared inappropriate observations at every turn and it was frankly quite brilliant. Course he still wanted to lamp the lad for being a smartarsed sod on many and frequent occasions. He was in love, he wasn’t lobotomised.

The sense of expectation increased as March broke with its shower spattered days. James took to carrying a large golf umbrella. He smoked beneath it, skulked beneath it, schemed and solved crimes beneath it. Robbie often found himself huddled right alongside, the two of them sharing space as the rain sluiced down, dampening the world beyond. His hands made their way to James’ shoulder, the small of his back, innocent touches that lingered far longer than was polite. James acknowledged the touches with little more than a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile. If he didn’t know better he’d swear he was being teased. He ached to touch more, to feel that impossibly slim waist, the curve of his arse. Eventually James began to watch him with a question in his eyes, and Robbie’s clapped out old heart beat faster every time he imagined what he might finally be asked.

Wednesday morning found the umbrella leant against the back of their office door. At his desk James fidgeted restlessly; long fingers unbent a paperclip, clicked the end of a biro. His feet tapped out an uneven rhythm on the carpet. A monochrome flyer spent the morning on the side of his desk. It spent the afternoon in his in-tray, right where Robbie couldn’t miss it when he dropped off the post. He picked it up and cast a glance over the event. Some music festival or other this weekend over in Witney, a list of acts who were performing. One of them was doubtless James’ band. 

“So go on, which one are you?” Robbie asked. He wasn’t a detective for nothing, he had the distinct felling he was supposed to notice the flyer, supposed to ask about it.

“Scholare,” James said as Robbie scanned down, searching for the name. They were playing Saturday night at some hall or other. Headlining it looked like. Impressive.

“This your way of telling me you’re running away from home to become a musician?” Robbie asked.

“Hardly,” James scoffed, “what we get paid divided five ways wouldn’t keep me in cigs let alone beer or food.”

“That was a scary insight into your priorities,” Robbie observed, raising an eyebrow and waiting for James to join in with the gentle ribbing. 

Instead James dropped his eyes to his desk. Fingers fiddling once again with the paperclip. Robbie waited. James breathed in, looked up. “Thought you might want to come and see what we do,” James offered diffidently. Too bloody diffidently.

“Why?” Robbie demanded, eyes narrowing. He knew he sounded gruff. Could hear it in his own voice, didn’t need James’ slightly shocked, rounded eyes. Didn’t need to see the hint of hurt flittered across his face, all too quickly masked. 

Bloody hell, so this was what James had been working up to for the last three weeks. An invitation to hear his band perform. He’d hoped…well what he’d hoped was clearly never going to happen. Christ he was an old fool. A stupid old fool. The kind of grumpy, stupid old fool that apparently made a social invitation the kind of thing someone had to work up to issuing. No wonder he was running out of friends and drinking partners.

“No reason,” James was saying casually, slipping the flyer out of his hands and into the privacy of his desk drawer.

“Give us that here,” Robbie instructed more gently. He wandered to the window, scrutinising the flyer more closely, hiding his face, hiding his own hurt. “Just surprised that’s all,” he offered, “you’ve never suggested it before.” 

It was a reasonable explanation. The best he could manage above the turmoil in his head. How had he got things so wrong? He scoffed at the question. He knew all right, he was a policeman after all. He’d known about confirmation bias long before they thought to give it a fancy name, about how you always see what you want to see. Just because he longed for James didn’t mean it worked both ways. He risked a glance at James and was glad to see his expression had returned to normal. No need for both of them to end up hurt because of his stupid, schoolboy imaginings. If James wanted him to go see his band, then go see them he would.

“Yeah?” James asked, quietly hopeful. 

“Yes,” Robbie agreed, forcing a decisive tone into his voice. “Might be nice to finally see what you get up to in your spare time.” Well he’d wanted to know more about James’ band, maybe meet them. No reason to be churlish just because it wasn’t as he’d imagined, Just because James’ God clearly had a horrible sense of humour. 

“I could pick you up, if you don’t mind going a bit early?” James offered. “We need to set up and do a sound check, but we can grab something to eat before I go on.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Robbie agreed tucking the flyer into his jacket pocket. The joy in James’ face was a bittersweet pleasure. “You’re not trying to turn me into groupie or something?” he asked suspiciously as he sat back down at his own desk. Two desks and six foot of carpet between them. Might as well be a country mile.

“Maybe a roadie,” James offered after moment of thought. “All groupies do is hang around and stare at us adoringly, we’ve got far too many of those already and not one of them knows how to set up a music stand,” he concluded mournfully.

James was joking. Had to be. He might not know much about music but he was fairly sure five blokes playing madrigals didn’t attract groupies. The image of a pretty redhead came all too quickly to mind. He felt a little sick. 

“Do you know how to set up a music stand?” James asked. 

“More chance that than me throwing my knickers at you,” Robbie observed. The snort of laughter was a welcome return to normal. 

***  
The sun was beginning to set as James called on Saturday afternoon. He stood in Robbie’s hall, shifting awkwardly from one foot to another. Nerves he supposed. Performance anxiety. Not like James to get nervous, but then again for all he knew this might be perfectly normal behaviour before a performance. He was wearing a soft cotton shirt and a pair of tight jeans that were proving a mite distracting. Robbie picked up his wallet and tried to avert his eyes as James led the way to the car. 

They headed west out of Oxford, the sinking sun low on the horizon. James turned off at the Eynsham roundabout, winding through the back roads as the night inked the sky to black, full beam headlights picking out their path.

The sky above was clear and frost began to harden on the trees and fields. Robbie hunkered in his seat, thankful for the car heater and the fact they weren’t on call. He glanced up at the sky, picking out the familiar shape of the plough. Like most of the population it was the only constellation he could recognise and he voiced the thought.

James glanced across at him and laughed a little. 

“Go on,” Robbie said with weary patience, “what have I said wrong now. You’re going to tell me it’s not a constellation aren’t you?”

“Your telepathy skills are coming on leaps and bounds,” James observed. “The plough is an asterism, a prominent group of stars that form part of a constellation. In this case Ursa Major.”

“The bear,” Robbie said.

“The big bear,” James agreed. “Technically the larger she-bear if we’re being picky about the Latin.”

“Which of course you are,” Robbie observed. “So where’s the rest of this poor large girl hiding then?”

“The plough forms the tail and back end but I doubt you’ll be able to easily find the rest,” James explained. “At this time of year we’re looking out of the plane of the milky way, essentially into the dark, starless space between galaxies. We can really only see a few, bright foreground stars. Plus the top half of her is directly above us,” James added gesturing vaguely toward the car’s roof. 

“Thought you didn’t know anything about astronomy,” Robbie accused. 

“I didn’t,” James agreed, “but you know…”

Robbie grunted. Course he knew about astronomy now. Had months to read all manner of books about the subject. Probably signed up to an online course or something equally as mad. 

“You should be able to pick out the northern star,” James suggested. 

“Yeah, know that one,” Robbie agreed. “Or at least I know it’s not the brightest star in the sky.”

“No,” James agreed a hint of approval colouring in his voice, “but do you know what is?”

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Robbie said contentedly. He really was quite happy to remain in ignorance, although there was fat chance of that with James on his latest pet subject.

“The brightest star is Sirius, should be over to the south,” James offered. “But interestingly at this time of year the most prominent start is actually Arcturus.”

“Where’s that then,” Robbie asked scanning the sky lazily. They all looked much of a muchness to him. White things hovering around in the black. Pretty enough and pretty amazing when you stopped to think about it all, which he rarely did. Existential musings weren’t exactly his bag. Not that they’d ever sat down and divvied up roles, but heavenly contemplations were definitely not part of his job description.

“Behind us,” James said with a hint of regret, “if there’s not too much light when we get to the hall I’ll point it out.”

The car park was mostly empty when they arrived and James parked up in the far corner next to a blue van. They stepped out, the air crisp and dry, cold enough to catch in the throat. James paused by the boot and lit a cigarette as he leant in to retrieve his guitar and a couple of other bags. The guitar he slung over his shoulder, stacking the other bags on the ground as he leant a hip against the car, lingering over his cigarette.

“I’m not actually your roadie you know,” Robbie said as he came to stand beside James regarding the bags with narrowed eyes. He watched smoke trail up into the night sky, each exhale a burst of breath that crystallised in the cold air. At least if he was watching the smoke he wasn’t watching James. Watching the play of his hands and mouth. The cold would hide his shiver. 

“Then I’ve frankly no idea why I brought you,” James teased. “Arcturus,” he said a moment later, gesturing east, back toward where Oxford lay, the glow of cigarette a darting path in the murky black. “The red star low on the horizon.”

“Looks orange to me,” Robbie suggested as his eyes found what James was pointing out. 

“Pedant,” James accused approvingly. “It’s a red giant. It’ll be dead in a few million years.”

“That soon?” Robbie joked. 

“Actually it could already be dead only we’re still receiving the light,” James said, his voice a little troubled, a little puzzled. Something he didn’t know then.

“It was named over two and a half thousand years ago, it means Guardian of the Bear.” James continued, recovering his equilibrium. 

“More Latin?” Robbie asked.

“Greek,” James corrected, “two and a half thousand years ago the city of Rome was little more than a few mud brick houses, whereas the Greeks had already invented pretty much everything going. It’s called that because it’s the brightest star in a constellation that sits next to both Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. It was said to watch over the two bears.”

“What is it with you and bloody bears?” Robbie asked.

James turned to look at him and offered a half-hearted shrug. 

“You’ve been chuntering about them since last year,” Robbie persisted.

“Have I?” James asked in an innocent tone that Robbie had long ago learned to distrust. His voice was a little breathy and Robbie felt himself drawn in, drawn toward that voice. Must be the cigarettes that were roughening his usually smooth tones. 

James’ eyes found his and held and whatever he was going to say died on his lips. His heart stuttered, beating hard in chest, his breathing quickened. God James was close. So bloody, wonderfully close. Closer than a sergeant any right to be. Too close really. Yet he didn’t move away. The heat from James body softened the chill of the night air and he swayed closer still. James looked down at him, gentle eyes and a half smile softening his features.

“Why might that be then?” James asked, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

The air around them shimmered as headlights swept across the car park. Doors clicked open and slammed shut and still James didn’t move away. 

“Don’t know,” Robbie offered lamely as the moment stretched too long and that all too familiar embarrassment heated his cheeks. 

James’ smile shifted, turning rueful and a little sad as he turned away. Guilt flooded through him. He’d failed in some way and he hated that he’d made James look like that. It wasn’t his fault he just didn’t have a bloody clue what was going on, although James clearly expected that he should. 

James shifted the guitar more securely on his shoulders and bent to pick up the other bags, starting out toward the hall with long, purposeful strides. Robbie hurried after him, reaching for the larger case, he could at least lighten this burden a little. 

“Thought you weren’t a roadie?” James asked as their fingers tangled on the handle before the weight settled fully into his hand. 

“If I were you I’d worry more about me becoming a groupie,” Robbie suggested.

“I can just see you as a sexually obsessive screamer,” James suggested as he held open a side door. The flicker of eyes over the length of Robbie’s body had to be his imagination; the warmth in his cheeks a reaction to heat inside the hall.

“Never screamed in my life,” Robbie objected. “Anyway thought I’d start small, maybe buy a T-shirt, work my way up from there.”

“Very wise,” James agreed sagely, “wouldn’t want to do yourself an injury. Imagine trying to explain to A&E that you’d wrecked your vocal chords screaming for more mbaqanga.”

“Imagine indeed,” Robbie agreed as James stalked off toward the stage, long legs easily mounting the raised dais. Mbaqanga. He had no idea what it was but by God he wanted to know now, after the way he word had flowed from James’ lips. The lad could make anything sound attractive in those dulcet tones. Even what he was sure would turn out to be some right odd bit of music, twelfth century Tibetan throat singing or a didgeridoo duet. 

Robbie settled himself into an uncomfortable plastic chair and observed proceedings with as much interest as he could muster. Which hadn’t been much to start with and which waned sharply after about forty minutes of watching people he didn’t know faff around with things he barely recognised. The people he had a bit more of a chance with, recognising most from the pub all those months ago but couldn’t have put names to faces. Except for that Nick bloke who was stood at the back of the stage fiddling with the pegs on a double bass. And there was that priest bloke wandering around with several microphones. He’d have brought a crossword or something if he’d thought. Except the only real thoughts in his head today had been daft imaginings about how the evening might turn out. The boredom probably served him right, some sort of cosmic chastisement for things he had no right to be imagining. 

James had set up a black music stand and then a microphone stand with his usual contained efficiency. An amplifier sat at his feet and once his folders of music were open you could barely see him, just a pale face and a shock of yellow hair against the blue backdrop of the stage curtain. He was gently strumming his guitar, pausing to pluck a single string every now and again, his eyes distant as he tweaked and twisted, gently persuading the instrument into tune. He looked blissfully peaceful, despite the noise around him as four other instruments tested and teased themselves into some sort of order. At least Robbie supposed it was order, sounded more like an unearthly cacophony to him. Things got a little more tuneful with the sound test, but it still wasn’t exactly what you’d call harmonious. But peaceful was a good look on James, a rare look. Maybe something he’d been more familiar with during his priestly phase.

There was momentary lull on the stage and James glanced up and caught his eye. Smiling at him across the regimented rows of chairs, his expression open and oddly unguarded. He looked happy, freely joyful in a way that he so rarely was. Robbie found himself smiling back, unwilling to look away. God he had it bad, quite clearly if James was happy, he was happy. And how juvenile was that. Maybe they should get friendship bracelets or those heart necklaces that split into two pieces. The type of thing Lynn used to pester her mum for. Argos probably sold them. They could stop at Botley on the way home. 

Their gaze didn’t waver and Robbie sat back and waited for that bloody embarrassed feeling to strike up again. Well it had been almost an hour since his last attack of self-consciousness, he was probably due one. And staring at your sergeant with a soppy grin on your face was just the kind of thing to bring it on. Bad enough in the privacy of the office, never mind doing it across a hall surrounded by a bunch of his mates. Only this time the embarrassment didn’t follow. There was only James, his beatific smile and the answering delight in his own heart. 

He watched as James’ eyes widened, his expression shifting, darkening and deepening. Robbie narrowed his eyes, unsure of what he was seeing. He’d swear blind there was heat in that gaze, longing with just an edge of intensity. And that was captivating in a whole other way. Except of course there was nothing like that. Not really. James would never look at him like that. He was glad of the space between them, because if James had been within touching distance he’d have done something ludicrous and utterly foolish. 

God, he needed a hobby. A girlfriend. A boyfriend. Right now even a sodding goldfish would help. Something, anything to take an interest in, to divert his attention from James. A crush was one thing, but this was getting beyond a joke. He was mistaking innocent comments and touches for interest, a simple social invitation for a date, and here he was seeing hunger in the eyes of a friend. That was three steps too far down the road to lecherous old weirdo. Anything more and he’d just have to go native, buy a grubby mac and run with it. 

Away to the right the saxophonist spoke. James blinked and turned away, attention diverted. Robbie swallowed hard and tried to remember how to breathe. Because that expression, whatever it had been, wasn’t peaceful. And it had nothing to do with being priestly. Nothing whatsoever.


	4. Chapter 4

They broke off around six and Robbie ambled over to the foot of the stage, the soles of his shoes squeaking a little on the pale parquet flooring. James hovered at the edge of the group, fiddling with his phone, seemingly paying no attention to a discussion about the relative merits of various takeaways. Researching no doubt, Robbie surmised. He’d have an app or something, comparing and contrasting ambience, service, the overall customer experience and other such bollocks. Really all they needed was somewhere that environmental health hadn’t tried to close down that served a decent bit of nosh. The nearest pub was probably a good bet. 

He thought about saying something as they clattered down the stage steps, but chose to hold back, unsure of his place in this group of people. For all he knew those who played fancy music in posh villages didn’t eat in pubs. He didn’t want to seem like some rough around the edges berk that James’ had scared up from somewhere, didn’t want to reflect badly on him. He laughed at himself. This was a music concert, supposed to be a fun night out, and here he was acting like he was meeting the parents.

“All right?” he offered as James approached him, pausing briefly to snag his jacket from the back of a chair and ease his way into it. Robbie carefully didn’t watch the way the movement stretched the cotton of his shirt over a well defined chest. Certainly didn’t appreciate the trim waist that appeared as soft leather moulded comfortably to its owner’s body. 

“You ready?” James asked as a gentle touch steered him away from the others and their continuing discussion.

“Well I am,” Robbie agreed with a nod backward, “but I don’t think it’s been decided where we’re going.”

“Leave them to it,” James advised with a fond glance at his band mates, “they do this all the time. They’ll end up disagreeing about everything and then have to grab a sandwich from Boots or get some fish and chips.”

“Well if I have a choice I’d prefer the chippie,” Robbie offered as James continued to lead him away, walking up the length of the hall toward the main entrance. At the back of the room a couple of blokes had started to clear away the chairs and James stepped nimbly around them. 

“Shouldn’t we wait for them or something?” Robbie asked as they emerged into the chilly, clear evening. Witney’s High Street stretched out in front of them, its shops now largely dark as the pubs and restaurants geared up for business, their lights illuminating the last lingering shoppers and tourists. 

He paused on the steps, knowing without needing to check that James would be fishing for a cigarette. After seven years there was still plenty he didn’t know about the bloke, probably could know him for seventy and he’d still be largely clueless. But James’ nicotine addiction had taken him all of seven minutes to suss out.

James slipped a hand into the front pocket of his jeans, long fingers feeling for the ever present lighter. “There’s a restaurant not too far from here that’s supposed to be good. I booked a table.” He glanced across at Robbie, tone, stance, expression a perfect study in careful composure.

“You booked a table?” Robbie asked incredulously. Seven years of knowing the lad and god knows how many shared meals, but not once had either of them ever booked a table. That was…well it was something. Something his brain couldn’t quite process. 

“They’re popular and it is Saturday night,” James offered by way of explanation as he turned away just a little too quickly. Robbie studied him with narrowed eyes. The dim light had shadowed James’ face, to a smooth, plain monotone. No way to know for sure whether there was a flush to his cheeks. But he’d bet his bottom dollar it was there. Anytime James got excessively dignified and couldn’t meet his eyes there was something he was hiding. He could see it clear in his mind, the way the pink would tinge his cheekbones, mottled heat spreading down across the back of his neck. 

Exactly the kind of flush James produced when he was really rattled. Well as rattled as this naturally reticent product of the public school system ever got. Damn the bloody dark. He hated not having all the evidence. From now on they were only meeting in well lit places. 

Granted, the explanation he’d given wasn’t wholly unfeasible explanation. It was a Saturday, and Witney was the kind of place where a good restaurant would get busy. Although whether they’d get busy by 6.15pm was a matter for debate. One that he rather sensed James’ wasn’t willing to have. The lad was probably uncomfortable about how it might look if it got back to the station. Not too many other sergeants would have taken their superior officer out on a Saturday night, and booked a table to boot. But then if he’d learnt anything in their time together it was that James wasn’t like other officers. Damn good thing too. 

“Okay,” Robbie eventually agreed, turning away with a half shrug, “lead on.” 

James did just that, taking them away from the familiar sights of the town centre and out along back streets at a brisk pace. They crossed the Windrush via an old, iron footbridge and passed into a residential street, its limestone buildings standing watch over quiet cobbles. James slowed his steps and came to pause in front of a small, boutique hotel. A hand settled itself at Robbie’s back and he found himself guiding smoothly through a carpeted lobby toward what looked like a back door. 

The hand lingered as James held a brief conversation with a waiter and then they stepped through into a small, intimate dining room. So much for well-lit places Robbie thought ruefully as he took in the handful of tables placed at discrete intervals across a stone flagged floor. The ceiling was wholly glazed and at this time of night simple wall sconces offered the only lighting. There were proper cloth napkins on the tables and he’d bet good money this was the kind of place where the food arrived on square plates. Square plates from a chef that believed food preparation was also a Turner Prize category. The kind of place where it would take five courses before you could think you’d had a decent meal and they’d charge you through the nose for the experience. 

Never mind, tonight was James’ show. He let himself be guided toward an upholstered chair, starting with surprise as James halted him beside the table, stopping his attempt to settle himself. James’ hand swept up the length of his back and across his shoulder, and he found himself being eased him out of his coat and then guided into the chair. He sat down heavily and tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that settled in his stomach as he watched a waiter slip his old grey coat onto a wooden hanger and add it to a small collection by the door. He’d picked that up cheap on the market the autumn he came back from the British Virgin Islands. James’ expensive leather jacket might be worthy of that kind of treatment, and what looked to be a collection equally pricey wool coats deserved to be there, but his old jacket looked right out of place.

He could feel James’ eyes on him, but for the life of him he couldn’t quite look at the lad yet. He felt oddly nervous, ill at ease. He wasn’t exactly used to places like this. Mind, he wasn’t normally bothered by them either. People had tried to make him feel like an outsider in Oxford for over half his life and it had rarely ever worked. It was all a matter of perspective, mind set or what have you. He had just as much right to be poking around the dust and dark of its hallowed halls as any nob academic. But he wasn’t sure he had much right to be sat here. Not with James. Not like this. 

This was a nice, refined place. And the other tables were inhabited by nice, refined middle class couples. An older pair sat across from them, relaxed and easy with each other as they discussed the menu. Midlands accents; likely on a weekend break. A younger couple over by the kitchen door, proper RP vowels tinged with just a hint of a local accent. Babysitter at home if the compulsive checking of a mobile phone was anything to go by. 

This wasn’t the kind of place you took a friend. Not on a Saturday night. If he didn’t know better he’d have said this was a date. But this was James, and he didn’t do dates. Neither of them did. Well established fact. James would have read about this place in some magazine or supplement and squirreled the review away in that massive brain of his for later use. The band playing nearby was a good enough reason to try it out. And this wasn’t exactly the kind of place you came on your own either. It needed company. So that’s what he was. Company. So very different from a date.

But God help him he was only human, and all the posh furniture and fancy coat racks weren’t helping him keep his imagination in check. It had been years since he’d done anything like this, the whole wining and dining routine. And he’d never experienced it from this side. Never been the one to be taken off somewhere, to be guided and shepherded. Solicitude wasn’t something he’d experienced before. Felt odd. Felt nice. Felt oddly nice. 

He idly wondered what the waiter might make of them. Working class bloke made good with his toy-boy. Or an escort even. Father and son. Unlikely that one, in no universe did James look like anything he could have produced. Perhaps they looked just like one of the other nice, refined couples. He stopped that thought before it wandered too far. Before he ended up sat here, in front of James under false pretences. Wanting to deceive himself and the rest of the world. As though his fantasies could be made more real if they were shared by strangers. And right there was the fourth step toward obsessed nutter. 

“Go on then,” Robbie said as he tamped down all his thoughts and idle musings, finally letting his eyes rest on James, “where’d you hear about this place?”

James relaxed at his question, a minute easing of the tension around his eyes that might not have been noticeable to many people. He had been worried then. Not just about what that station might think, but what Robbie might think, what assumptions he might make. Probably should find some way of letting the lad know that he’d long ago given up speculating about the reason behind any of James’ actions. Fruitless bloody task. Conjecture was all well and good but you had to have something to start working with. Some facts, some knowledge. Too many missing pieces with James to even know where to begin. 

“An article on urban morphology, believe it or not,” James said as he poured each of them a glass of some expensive looking bottled water. 

“Yeah, I believe it,” Robbie agreed with a gentle, mocking tone. “The real question is will I understand any of it,” he countered. Urban morphology. Course. What else. Trust James to get his restaurant reviews from an academic journal. God knows what counted as TripAdvisor in his head, probably the parliamentary papers of the Foreign Office. 

Fingertips grazed his knuckles and he started in surprise. That intense expression was back on James’ face and he found himself drawn into those deep, almost fathomless eyes. James stared back, expression soft and almost a little indulgent. Thank god there wasn’t a candle on the table, that really would have been too much. He flattened his palm to the thick cotton of the table cloth, resisting the urge to reach out and grasp those questing fingers. “Course you’ll understand it,” James said seriously.

Robbie fought the pleased little smile that twitched the corner of his mouth. He was never going to be as clever as James. Didn’t necessarily want to be, the differences were what made them a good team. Someone had to be around to remind James that not all murders could be solved by detailed study of dead Romans. But then again it never hurt the old ego to be told that he wasn’t daft.

“The actual question,” James continued, his voice morphing into something a little more familiar, a little more teasing, “isn’t whether you’ll understand, but whether the topic will hold your interest. Or whether after five minutes you’re going to try and explain the offside rule to me. Again.”

“Give over,” Robbie said, “you understand that well enough. Just don’t want to admit it, in case someone mistakes you for a well rounded individual.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” James said with a grin, “When that happens I just quote Wittgenstein. Soon disabuses them.”

“True at that,” Robbie agreed with a smile of his own. He’d actually done that once, when Hooper had tried to join in a daft argument about Christmas number ones. Mind the subsequent attempt to start a debate about Girl’s Aloud and subversive feminism had probably been overkill, but Hooper had scuttled off sharpish. The amount of information in James’ held in his head about all manner of things was frankly fascinating. Like a chameleon he was at times, just as much at home chatting in a pub as he was discussing opera with the Chief Constable. But always the same James underneath it all, incisive, funny and witty and so much more than just clever. And now he wanted to talk about urban morphology for some reason. 

“Come on then, Robbie encouraged, “we’ll never know if I can stomach your latest pet subject until you try.”

James rewarded him with a quick smile and settled back into his chair, long legs stretched out under the table. “The other weekend when it was absolutely belting it down and I didn’t fancy battling the elements on the river, I decided to have a look at the recent journals on the Bod’s website…”

“You know most people would have just watched telly, or gone to the pub,” Robbie interrupted fondly.

“Ah but this is Oxford,” James pointed out, “where even the policemen get academically reviewed by professors. It pays to keep abreast of the latest research.”

Academically reviewed. Reported to Innocent, he meant. They now had a whole section in James’ appraisal devoted to the year’s complaints. Gave James a chance to exercise his impressive vocabulary and then they could honestly tell Innocent they’d addressed the matter. No need for her to know that bit was done in the pub, and that James became more loquacious and cutting as the night wore on and the empties stacked up. 

“…and there was an article about permeability versus enclosure and the use and experience of space within the urban form that caught my eye,” James continued. 

Robbie cast a quelling gaze over the table, unsurprised at the cheeky, know-it-all grin that came back in reply. “Yeah, English please,” he demanded, “I left my dictionary of architectural terms at home tonight.” 

James’ lips quirked a smile and something like pride warmed his eyes. Robbie resisted the urge to kick those sprawled legs. Just because he wasn’t entirely sure about permeability and enclosure and whatever the hell else James had been reading about, didn’t mean he had no idea about urbanism. It had been all the rage when he’d been studying for his sergeant’s exams. Strange had sent him on a course all about how the physical environment could affect behaviour. He came away with the knowledge that designing alleyways into housing estates were a bad idea if you wanted to lower crime rates. And that people were calmer if they saw trees and green things rather than an endless parade of tower blocks and concrete. Things any halfwit member of uniform knew. Didn’t exactly take a bloke in a cheap suit with letters after his name to point them out. Still it had been a break from work. Bit of time away from stroppy teenaged kids.

“It is interesting, I promise,” James said half apologetically, waiting for the fond roll of Robbie’s eyes before continuing. “It was looking at how and if, you should enclose open spaces.”

“What squares and parks and the like?” Robbie asked, “build a big dome around everything like the Eden project?” God the topics they talked about were mad at times. What was madder was that he loved every minute of it. 

“Not exactly,” James said with a shake of his head, animation starting to show in his body. “Using glass, yes, but in smaller spaces like streets or the gaps between buildings. It really is fascinating, because once you enclose them they’re no longer part of the city in the same way they were before.”

Robbie raised an eyebrow, but let James continue. Seemed fairly obvious that if you built walls around something it changed how people saw it, but he’d let the lad have his head for now. There was plenty of time for the offside rule later. Or perhaps a discussion about why Arsenal always tried to walk it in. 

“It was the use of glass that was most interesting, because most people think that it’s a permeable material.”

“Well it is,” Robbie objected. “You can see through it and everything.” Permeable bloody material. Why was it every new interest of James’ ended up with the English Language being assembled in new and incomprehensible ways. Time was it had annoyed the hell out of him, but these days he largely found it endearing.

“Ah, but you can’t walk through it,” James continued, “if you put a glass frontage on an alleyway it fundamentally changes its relationship with the streets and spaces around. Even you put a door in the glass, and those doors are never locked, always propped open, there’s still a barrier to cross if you want to walk down the street. There’s a definite and defined change from the open space of one street into the closed space of the glass street. One is definitely public, the other semi-privatised. The need to cross a threshold, the ambiguity of that liminal point creates resistance and reluctance. People walk past, they don’t walk in. It’s no longer permeable.”

Robbie paused for a moment, considering the mini-lecture. He’d put good money on most of that being lifted straight out of the article. That near photographic memory and all. Those weren’t entirely James’ words. The tone was off, the rhythm wrong. And yeah, the fact that knew James’ speech patterns quite so intimately was probably telling. But of all the things he was noticing about James these days that pretty much counted as innocent. 

“Yeah, okay, I can see that,” Robbie agreed. Not something he’d ever really thought about before. Talking with James could be a sobering experience, you came away aware of how little you really knew about anything. “But do people really do that?” he asked, “stick glass boxes around streets.”

“Yup,” James said with a nod, sharing a smirk with Robbie at the lunacy of the idea. “There’s a whole shopping centre in Leeds that’s been created by enclosing a network of streets. They’ve built walkways, escalators, commissioned public art. And then stuck it all underneath a bloody big dome. And branded it,” he finished with a distinct air of distaste. 

“Calling it what?” Robbie asked. Lyn talked about Leeds every now and again. Shopping trips. Girl’s nights out. Might be something he recognised. Something he could chat to her about next time she rang, make her old dad seem a bit less like an old duffer. 

“Trinity,” James muttered. And that was distaste dialled right up to disgust.

“Because it’s a divine experience?” Robbie queried with a frown. 

“Hardly,” James scoffed, “nope, simply because there’s a church called Holy Trinity next to it. As though by nicking a two thousand year old idea from a two hundred year old building they could give a shopping centre some borrowed sense of class and dignity.”

Robbie raised a brief eyebrow. Sometimes James got on his high horse just for the sake of it. But his sense of annoyance seemed real enough. Impossible to know whether it was because the builder’s couldn’t be arsed thinking of their own name, or because they’d nabbed something that belonged to the church. Laziness or plagiarism. Both cardinal sins in James’ book.

“So what used to be open space is now somewhere you only go if you want to spend money?” Robbie offered, returning them back to the topic at hand.

“Quite.” James agreed. “The commercialisation and privatisation of previously public space. Neoliberal economics at its most voracious.”

“But then again,” he continued after the waiter had departed with their order, “the enclosure of space can be a positive, creative act. This restaurant for instance. It’s the old service yard for a cloth merchant’s. They converted the warehouse and the shop floor into the hotel, and rather than give into the temptation to leave this as a useful dumping ground for old head boards and laundry cages, they made this,” he concluded with a general wave around their surroundings. 

“And it’s not the same thing?” Robbie asked as he took in the flags and limestone walls with a new appreciation. Now he was really looking he could see odd pieces of ironmongery and timber set into the walls. The same kind of hooks and handles he’d seen around the old wharfs and warehouses in Newcastle where he’d played in as a lad. “After all, we’re only in here because we’re spending money. Doubt they’d let you just walk in off the street and nosey around.”

“True,” James agreed with a nod, half conceding the point, “but why would you want to? This wasn’t a street before, wasn’t somewhere anyone could walk down. It was dead space, inaccessible, unused, unknown. Enclosing it has made it more permeable, not less. People do come in now, where as they couldn’t before.”

Robbie sat back in his chair, happy to simply bask in James’ evident interest and delight as he continued to expound on the topic. He listened as James moved on to talk about the hotel. About fabrics and weaving and the juxtaposition of history and modernity. About glass and metal and wood from old mill machines. Over a pleasantly large portion of slow braised beef, green beans and whatever the hell mint crushed potatoes were, James meandered his way through medieval trade guilds and mill life, workhouses and the horrors of rampant Victorian capitalism and the early moves toward a welfare state.

He was clearly content here. In soft light and tasteful surroundings. In a paradoxical room that should really be space. In a place that was something from nothing. Robbie wasn’t inclined to bring up the subject of God again but it was an oddly theological concept really. And of course James would know all the right quotes from Genesis about creation. He half remembered some from the chapel Sunday School, but he wasn’t going to ask about them. Because those kind of conversations never ended well. 

Instead, by the time they declined desert Robbie knew more about the social history of Oxfordshire than he’d ever thought possible. But he didn’t mind. Not really. Not when James kept glancing up at him with shy little half smiles that softened and broadened when he offered a nod or comment. Not when it was clearly important that James had an interested audience. That someone was willing to listen as he tracked paths through his brain, linking information and anecdotes, sharing his world. That on this Saturday night at least he had someone at his side. 

James stood up to settle the bill, his hand pressing briefly against Robbie’s shoulder as he passed. Robbie took a sip of his wine, swallowing against the rush of feeling that welled up in him as he watched James walk away. He was stunning anywhere, but here in this intimate half light, leaning a hip against the maître-d’s desk, a long streak of limbs and lithe muscle, he was singularly and completely beautiful. He’d make somebody a cracking partner one day. When he found someone who appreciated his wit and his knowledge. Who could work past his reticence and his walls. Who saw his brittleness and his compassion and his vulnerability and loved him all the more for it. 

He took another swallow of the wine, wincing at the suddenly sour taste. He stood and wandered over to gather their coats, handing James’ over and shrugging into his own jacket. He ignored the wounded looks of both the waiter and James. He was feeling daft enough as it was, no chance he was giving either of them the opportunity to help him into his clothing like some geriatric invalid. 

James lingered on the bridge as they crossed back over the river, glancing out into the dark, blurry landscape. “Tenterfields,” he observed.

“What now?” Robbie demanded. A little brusque perhaps, but the temperature had long since plummeted. He wasn’t necessarily up for lingering on bridges. Romantic a notion as it might be.

“These used to be tenterfields, back in the day,” James explained. “The blankets from the mills were stretched out on huge dying racks. It’s a process called tentering. The cloth was hung on tenterhooks. Hence the phrase.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?” Robbie demanded fondly. Tenterhooks. He felt like that some days. Not worried or anxious exactly. But like he was being pulled and stretched into a different shape. As though he’d folded in on himself after Val, and it wasn’t until coming home, coming back to the old familiar tethers that he’d been able to stretch back out and remember his shape. James had been a new tether. A new tenterhook pulling him in a different direction, creating a new form, new contours to his life. Keeping him on edge, keeping him in tension and anticipation. 

“Come on Marvin,” he insisted before that sense of anticipation made him stupid, “your legions of fans await.”

“Marvin?” James objected, “I’m not paranoid.”

“I note you’re not disputing the android,” Robbie commented as he turned away. 

“Nor the brain the size of a planet,” James agreed with a smirk, bumping his shoulder in companionable affection.


	5. Chapter 5

They walked briskly back to the hall, both buttoned up against the ever deepening cold. He stayed close to James, arms brushing as they walked through the quiet streets, James picking a path that led them to the back of the hall. They parted inside the stage door, James ducking into the stage wings with a distracted half-wave leaving Robbie to make his way toward the small bar that had opened up at the back of the hall. 

He glanced around as he settled against the sticky, Formica top. A young girl was on the stage singing something that sounded folky. Small groups sat at cabaret style tables, and a low murmur of conversation filled the room, some half measure of respect to the performance most were ignoring. He felt a bit sorry for the lass. Now he was looking closer she didn’t look much beyond school age. Sixth Form at best, and she was really quite good, deserved more attention than she was getting. Perils of being a warm-up artist he supposed. 

People continued to arrive, couples squeezing apologetically into vacant spaces, groups borrowing chairs cramming them into increasingly tight gaps. Father Paul slipped through the double doors and paused for a moment, taking in the scene. There were some odd chairs left if he wanted to brave the minefield of bags and legs and coats. But he wasn’t particularly surprised when the man pitched up at his side. He offered a half nod, turning away to survey the hall as a light smattering of applause signalled the end of the girl’s performance. It wasn’t a particularly welcoming gesture, but he didn’t feel too guilty about it. Not like he knew the bloke. Besides, from what he knew of priests a cold shoulder didn’t exactly deter them. Some even seemed to take it as a challenge. 

“Hello again,” the man said as he eased his way closer, voice dropping as the lights dimmed. Robbie sighed. Sometimes he hated being right. It wasn’t that he had a problem with him, but he wasn’t exactly here to socialise, he was here to see James perform. Not like you could carry on a proper conversation during a music concert anyway.

“Father,” he offered, watching as James took his place on stage. Pride welled up in him and he shoved it right back down again down. Daft reaction. Not like he’d had anything to do with James’ skill on the guitar. Or his place in the band. He’d had nothing to do with any of it. But still, that was his sergeant that people were clapping. His friend on a stage, picked out by a spotlight beam. 

“Just Paul, please,” the voice at his elbow continued. “I’m a Methodist minister, we don’t really go in for all that lark. James only uses Father to annoy me. Well that and his automatic and worryingly instant deference toward anyone in a dog collar.” 

Robbie huffed out a laugh. Not just him who noticed that tendency then. Although come to think of it, the idea of James demurring to anyone wasn’t particularly funny at all. Rather disturbing actually. He quelled any further thoughts along those lines and turned his attention to the music, trading the odd comment with Paul during the lulls between pieces. 

The music was surprisingly enjoyable, and not at all what he’d been expecting. Not just high-brow, classical pieces as would befit a band called Scholare, but arrangements of all different kinds of things. Different genres, or whatever it was they were called. It was clever, playful stuff. He’d recognised a Midnight Addiction piece bracketed by some Tchaikovsky and at least one Bowie song. They’d finished the first half with an instrumental version of Britney Spear’s Toxic of all things. Not that he really knew anything about music, but he’d have sworn blind a song like that couldn’t be done by a band like this. But they’d not only done it, it had been bloody amazing. All fast paced and energetic, James and Nick thundering out the rhythmic undercurrent as a flute and violin picked out the characteristic, wailing tune. High octane. Or so he overheard from a nearby table. 

But if he was truthful, it wasn’t really the music he was concentrating on. Much as he tried to watch the whole band, his eyes unerringly returned to James, who sat, curled around his guitar as through cradling it, protecting it. They were beautiful together. James’ fingers rippling across her strings, coaxing chords and intricate riffs, beating out rhythms on her body, providing melody, harmony and counterpoint. 

In turn the guitar did something to James. Gave him a kind of release, was the only way he could describe it. Watching him was a horribly bittersweet pleasure. He’d never seen so many expressions on James’ face before. Actually that wasn’t true. He’d seem them all over the years, but in fleeting, quicksilver moments. Joy, delight, contentment, pleasure. All too soon vanished into a stoic mask, or warped into scorn and irony. But here they were, on full power and on full display in a room full of strangers. 

He was haunting. Captivating. So engaged in the places and feelings inside him. Absorbed in a world where nobody else could follow. And it just about killed him to know that hundreds, possibly thousands of people must have seen James like this. And until now he never had. Likely never would again.

“So what’s your connection to this lot?” Robbie asked in lieu of any other distraction from his thoughts as the interval began, “you don’t play?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Paul said as they manoeuvred their way to the edge of the bar, out of the way of the gathering crowd, “if they ever need a shaky rendition of Frère Jaques on the recorder I’m a shoe-in apparently. But no, I mainly do lights and sound.”

“Mainly?” Robbie queried as he studied the man. He was affable enough. Had an easy way about him. Comfortable with people, with carrying on conversations with folk he barely knew. Good quality in a clergyman. 

“Yeah,” Paul said with a laugh. “But there may have been the odd panicked run to the nearest music shop, and at least one all the way back to Oxford, because someone brought an extra pair of socks, or even an extra pack of cigarettes rather than an extra set of guitar strings.”

Robbie joined in his laugh, enjoying the small glance into James as he existed beyond the job. “Not like him to be forgetful,” Robbie observed

“Oh, he can have his moments,” Paul muttered darkly, “but then again you’d know all about that.”

“Would I?” Robbie demanded thinking of his ever efficient sergeant, who rarely ever dropped a ball and would never once have forgotten his guitar strings. Or his tape recorder. Or his warrant card or smelling salts. Or whatever the hell else he kept secreted away in those pockets of his. Regular little Mary Poppins he was at times. 

Paul offered him a genuine smile, tinged with just a little bit of indulgence. “Come on, you’ve worked with him for how long? He has moments when the ability to be straightforward and in tune with the rest of the world utterly escape him.”

Robbie snorted. That was true enough. There were times when James thought too long and too hard. When he’d slip away from people and places and the things of the real world. End up spending too much time lost in theories and philosophies and rarefied possibilities and miss the bleeding obvious.

But when James’ brain deserted him on the job he and the rest of the station usually got treated to obscure quotes in ever more obscure languages. He never turned absentminded or careless. Though it was probably the same sort of thing just expressed in different ways. James’ ten ton brain reaching out and making a connection that no one else’s would. It worked most of the time, but sometimes it came a cropper. Like the time he’d quoted Virgil at a defence barrister. In court. In the original Latin. Or apparently the time he’d packed socks with his guitar. He’d have to add that to the list. Wind James up about it next time they were in the pub. Or the next time he tried to be a smart-alecked git. Knowing James he’d get the opportunity to use it by at least Monday afternoon. Quite possibly mid morning if it turned out to be one of those days.

“Take tonight for instance,” Paul continued after taking a long sip of his pint. “Classic example.”

“What about tonight?” Robbie asked, brow furrowing in confusion as Paul raised a pointed, questioning eyebrow.

“Well it’s hardly your normal date is it? Granted it has all the right elements, music, food, conversation, they’re just put together a bit wrong. What with James actually preforming the music and leaving you here talking to anyone other than him.”

Robbie stared at Paul in mute silence. Date. Right of course, this was a date. Certain elements looked like a date and quacked like a date, so ergo it was a date. 

Oh right then, he thought stupidly, clearly they did do dates. Not with other people, just with each other. He laughed weakly. It made a certain sort of contrary sense. Probably did make sense in a parallel universe. Just not in this one. No matter what hope had flared in him at Paul’s words.

“No, we’re not…” Robbie said, his explanation petering out lamely. Genius. Here he was aged fifty two and with more than the odd grey hair, reduced to the verbal dexterity of a teenager. 

“No?” Paul asked mildly. “You sure about that? He talks about you a lot, in a way he doesn’t talk about anyone else. And remember I’ve seen the way you look at him, you couldn’t take your eyes off him tonight, just like you couldn’t all those months back.”

“All those…” Robbie echoed as realisation washed over him in a wave that left him cold, and then set every patch of skin aflame. He could feel the blush in his cheeks, the itchy, prickly heat that spread over his body. God he’d been a total idiot. A dense, thick, oblivious, total, sodding idiot. He resisted the urge to slump to the bar and repeatedly bang his head until the embarrassment faded. Or he gave himself a permanent concussion. Which one was preferable right now was a bloody close run thing.

He was aware of the music starting up around him, and he was almost sure he managed to keep up his half of an increasingly stilted exchange of comments with Paul. But his concentration was entirely elsewhere. Not on James anymore, but turned wholly inward as he tried to make sense of everything he’d just been told.

That pub after the lecture. The Bear. James must have seen him watching, and that was mortifying enough thank you very much. But then he’d spent the next ten months letting Robbie know his interest was returned. All those bear references, all those hints. And he’d missed it all. Too wrapped up in his own sense of martyred misery. Too sure of his own facts. Too closed a mind. 

Sod winding James up. Monday morning would find him in Innocent’s office explaining why he’d fed his warrant card through the shredding machine and how he didn’t deserve to be considered a detective. Ever, ever again. 

The burst of hearty, generous applause was a rude shock. The concert was over and he’d missed most of the second half. He stared down the hall to where James sat in the halo of a spotlight, blinking owlishly as he merged back into the present, his smile growing as he took in the obvious appreciation, chatting happily, animatedly with the rest of the band. It was like looking at a stranger. 

Only it wasn’t James that had changed. It was him; his perception, his perspective. He was looking at James with new eyes. Seeing for the first time the man who’d spent the better part of a year wooing him in his own cheeky, diffident, obscure way. Who’d brought him on a date to a crowded hall and planned an evening spent half apart, giving them both the option of plausible deniability. 

Around him the hall emptied in a steady flow of jostling bodies, the barman emerging to start collecting empties from the littered tables. Paul departed with a touch to his arm; apology or reassurance he hadn’t a clue. Eventually even the loiterers left, and his part of the hall returned to a sudden and strange silence. A low murmur of voices drifted from the stage occasionally punctured by the snap of an instrument case. James kept glancing his way as he packed up his music and guitar, but Robbie couldn’t return those gazes. Not now, when he was suddenly and totally at sea. How on earth did you tell your sergeant and friend of seventeen years your junior that you fancied the pants of them. And rather suspected they fancied you right back.

Well lad how about it? Get your guitar you’ve pulled. Fancy counting the cracks in my bedroom ceiling? Have I ever shown you my etchings?

God it was years since he’d been faced with this kind of a situation. Decades even. Longer than James’ lifetime. And that right there was exactly the kind of unhelpful thought he was going to stop having. Right after the hysteria faded. Because James was coming toward him, expecting some half way intelligent comment on the performance and there was not a single sentence he could muster.

James strode up from the front of the hall, his long legs shrinking the distance between them in an easy, ambling gait. The world around Robbie contracted, the muted noise and lights of the hall falling away until he could see nothing, but this beautiful, vulnerable boy. Who’d offered his heart so quietly, and so shyly, Robbie had walked right past it. Almost walked all over it.

The question was evident in his face, in the expectant tension of his body, the way his eyes flickered over Robbie’s face. He wouldn’t ever actually come right out and ask about the performance. Wouldn’t want to hear mild platitudes or undeserved praise. Wouldn’t push for an opinion Robbie couldn’t give, trusted Robbie to speak or stay silent as he pleased. 

And right there was the whole bloody problem in a nutshell. James too deferential and considerate. Him too timid; too afraid of causing offence or revealing himself a fool. The pair of them settled in their safe, silent worlds. 

Except James had been reaching out for months, offering a hand, time and time again. With more patience and pure bloody dogged hope than he’d ever had himself. Patience and hope and courage, so that now he didn’t even have to find the strength to meet him half way. More sort of stumble forward a bit. Lucky really, given the total absence of all higher brain functions.

“You’re amazing, totally bloody amazing,” he offered in a sudden rush of emotion. And that was just dandy. Eloquent, articulate and not at all stupid. He’d done better aged fourteen at the school disco. The tremble in his voice didn’t help him sound any less idiotic. Ludicrous for just five words. Four really. God, he might as well just stand here mute for all the impression he was making. 

James offered half a smile, the rest of his expression lost to quizzical concern as he regarded Robbie. Reading the nerves and the slight edge of panic no doubt. Wondering what on earth about a simple concert could have caused it. No doubt wondering why Robbie was offering such fulsome praise. Granted it was a bit taciturn, but still fulsome. More expressive than he’d normally be. Except he wasn’t normally trying to wrap his brain and mouth around ten months of unspent emotion. 

“I’m an idiot. You’re amazing,” he offered again. Voice steadier this time.

“Okay…” James agreed slowly. Tone careful. “Not necessarily disagreeing with either statement, but I have absolutely no idea what you’re on about. How much have you had to drink?” he added with narrowed eyes.

“Honestly no idea,” Robbie admitted. He didn’t feel drunk. Just a stomach full of butterflies, and a faint edge of nausea. Too much at stake if this went belly up. The whole world before him if it went right. Heady anticipation flickered through him at the thought of all those breathless kisses and the dizzy excitement that could follow. Falling in love; like being drunk in the wrong order. 

“I’m really sorry,” he said with a shake of his head, “I didn’t see it. Didn’t see what you were offering. No idea how you managed to bear with me.”

And there it was. His own admission. Out in the open. Sort of. As open as James’ hints had been. Still plenty of space for the lad to ignore his words, to deliberately misunderstand if that’s what he wanted. The beat of his heart throbbed in ears. Panic and nausea rising again. This was nothing like he’d imagined it might be during those endless nights when the loneliness mastered all attempts to hold the dreams at bay. Never had he imagined laying open his heart in an emptying, echoing hall to a desultory audience of strangers. Not that there’d been swelling strings or a mariachi band, just maybe the odd riverside table or a canal towpath. 

James’ face cleared in a rushed sweep of emotion that was at once relief, wonder and expectation. The throbbing in his head eased and they watched each other for a long, careful moment. James offered a tentative smile that grew and blossomed of its own accord, a simple blissful expression settling on his fine features. And that, right there, that was something like his dreams. 

James reached out a hand, the pressure of fingers light and hesitant. Robbie squeezed back, momentarily mesmerised by the tangle of pale digits among his own rougher, rouged hands. Weathered by the years, by so many more winters and chilly morning call-outs. 

“Home?” James asked softly. 

“Yeah,” Robbie agreed. He had no idea where they went from here, but home was as good a place as any to start. James tugged gently, pressure pulling him back toward the stage, spurring his feet to movement. They passed the others, James offering some sort of farewell. But his only attention was on the feel of that hand in his own, the skin hot and dry, a sharp, welcome contrast to the night air. 

They paused by the car. Robbie lifted their hands, inspecting red skin and calluses, running his thumb over oddly smooth fingertips. His stomach swooped in elation. He could do this now. Could touch James. Literally a dream come true. God those matching necklaces were looking more and more likely. 

James shivered as he pulled away reluctantly. “Guitar player’s hands,” he observed. “Well fingers. They’ll hurt like a bitch tomorrow, but it’s worth it. Oh and fair warning, I’m putting your quote on our office wall. I am absolutely amazing.”

“Are you now?” Robbie asked teasingly as James loaded his bags into the boot. He’d never quite seen James in this mood before. He was happy. Giddy almost. It was as though the habitual reticence had been stripped from him and all that remained was glaring, shining confidence. It was different, seeing the lad like this, having confidence about something other than the things he knew. Fair chance James had rarely been confident about the things he felt. Well he’d have that confidence every day if he had anything to do with it. 

James shut the boot, the closing thud loud in the nearly abandoned car park. He leant close and Robbie tilted his head, heart racing in anticipation of the kiss that was to come. Lips grazed his ear and he shivered in pleasure. This. Any of this, all of this, it was so much more than he’d ever imagined. 

“Amazing,” James’ voice whispered and his body decided he liked this confidence just fine. He reached out again, wanting to touch that confidence, to feel its shape beneath his hands. But James was already stepping away, retreating to the driver’s door. Robbie bit back his disappointment as he reached for his own door and slipped into the passenger seat. He turned to James, wondering if he really could achieve full teenage regression tonight and get a snog in his boyfriend’s car.

But James only grinned at him, reversing the car with barely a glance over his shoulder. “Seatbelt Sir,” he instructed sassily. “Oh and that admission of total idiocy, may well feature in your next peer review.”

“I’d like to see you explain the circumstances of that to Innocent,” Robbie objected, settling back into his seat as James turned onto the A40. The fast route home. His heart kicked up a few beats. Anxiety or anticipation, he wasn’t entirely sure. But he sure as hell wanted to find out.

“Yeah, I think you would,” James agreed, his voice low and full of promise. Fingers grazed his thigh as the car slid into fifth gear, accelerating easily on the open clear road. “You like it when I’m insubordinate.”

His heart rate kicked up again. Because God help him, he did. This was going to be the death of him, Robbie realised. He’d managed to get himself involved with a sharp as nails detective whose entire job was ferreting out secrets. Like his penchant for James’ cheek and snark. His love of that all too frequent irreverence. How much he liked the sight of him in a pair of well fitted jeans. 

And James wouldn’t think twice about using what he knew to his advantage. Yep. The death of him. And he was just going to sit back and let it claim him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it - the conclusion. Hope it's been worth the wait! Thank you all for your lovely comments, especially any of you that have commented fully, expressively and/or more than once. I do read all the comments and they're really appreciated.
> 
> It's Friday and I've now finished work until after Christmas so I'm very relaxed - hence a bit of a rash offer. If anyone can guess why the story is called A Winter's Tale I'll pen a request fic for the first!!

They didn’t talk on the way home. The atmosphere in the car thick, heavy. Oppressive almost. So very different from their earlier journey. Robbie felt his confidence begin to evaporate as they passed the turn off to his house. The rest took flight on the walk from James’ car to his flat. He hovered in the entryway, oddly unsure what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to be. He hadn’t been here all that often, didn’t quite know where to sit, where to stand.

It meant something, surely, James bringing him home like this. Secluding the pair of them behind closed doors and closed curtains. Only he felt fifteen again, all buoyed up by half formed ideas and urges, and frozen in place at the thought of everything he didn’t know. Hellish as the last few months had been, the pining suddenly seemed a lot simpler. Easier to just admire James, to desire him from afar. Now it was all within his reach he had no idea what to do. 

Did James want to be courted as well, be bought flowers and wine and what have you. Except you couldn’t do flowers with a bloke, could you? James would probably prefer poetry. Poetry books even. Poetry books and pints. That sounded about right. 

Or were they supposed to head straight for bed. Bypass all that faffing around and have nice, uncomplicated sex. Only the way he remembered sex it was the complications that made it good. The emotions, the investment. Caring about your partner. About what happened the morning after, and all the days after that. 

James would be like that too. Had to be. Want-to-be priests didn’t just tumble straight into bed with the nearest warm body. Only he probably had with that Scarlet woman. And then that whole Zoe Kenneth fiasco, he’d seemed to land up on her bed pretty damn quick.

He drew in a long, steadying breath. He wasn’t either of those women. Wasn’t any of James’ previous partners. Just like James wasn’t Val or any of his previous girlfriends. Never did any good comparing yourself to other people. This was James, that was all that mattered. 

The stereo was playing music. A rich, female voice singing something that wasn’t English, slow, swirly music in the background. It sounded like the kind of thing angst ridden kids might listen to, the kind of thing he’d normally hate. But here, in James’ hushed, dim flat it was right somehow. 

Robbie sat himself on the couch, settling into its familiar curves. James ambled over from the breakfast bar a beer bottle dangling from long, fingers, his body easy and loose here in his own space. He watched Robbie with steady, quizzical eyes and Robbie felt himself flush, swallowing against a suddenly dry mouth. The lad looked all intense. Intense and languid, god knows how he managed that but it was a bloody distracting combination. 

“Is that panpipes?” he asked. Needing to say something, anything to ease the tightness that was settling in his chest, quickening his breathing. 

“Wooden flute,” James corrected after a second or so of listening, “same instrumental concept I suppose.”

Instrumental concept. Right. James’ unique way of telling him he was wrong, but not as wrong as he could have been. 

James came to rest against the arm of the sofa, the soft denim of his jeans crinkling where his thigh met upholstery. His eyes found Robbie’s, a ring of hazel around pupils that were large and deep in the dim light.

“You going to loom all night?” Robbie demanded rubbing suddenly damp palms against his own thighs, “for God’s sake sit down.”

James watched him silently, teeth worrying at the corner of his lip, flushing the skin blood red. He lifted the beer bottle to his lips, throat working as he took a sip of the cool liquid. 

“Have pity on my neck if nothing else,” Robbie joked. His voice sounded normal. Bloody miracle given that his stomach was doing summersaults and his mind had vacated the building the moment James’ tongue darted out to catch a stray drop of beer from the lip of the green glass. 

James’ expression was penetrating, eyes flitting over Robbie’s face, studying him carefully, deeply. But still he didn’t move. So here they were supposedly on the same page. But right now there was James, him and a stonking great elephant in the room. 

James took another swig of his beer before setting the bottle determinedly on a mahogany occasional table. Then he slipped smoothly into Robbie’s lap. Bony knees bracketed his hips, the gentle curve of a surprisingly soft arse resting against his legs. 

Well that was one way to get rid of the elephant, squeeze right up until there was no bloody space for it anymore. 

“Christ,” Robbie muttered. It was a word. A whole word. In English. He was oddly proud of himself. 

He was less proud of the way his hands were hovering uselessly in the air. Some undecided place between his body and James’. Some point between fear and desire, unsure whether to unseat the lad and bolt for the door or simply grab hold and never let go. 

He risked a glance at James’ face and found a smirk and a raised eyebrow for his trouble. Robbie recognised a challenge when he saw one and raised an eyebrow of his own in response. It settled him somehow, that brief moment of silent sparring. They were good at that. The back and forth, the call and response. Only now there was suspense, frisson, the knowledge of where this would lead. All the ways he would bait James, how he would be teased and tantalised in return. God, if they got this right, got past the nerves and the awkwardness the sex was going to be bloody fantastic. 

“Got this all planned out have you?” Robbie asked, wondering for one hysterical moment if he should be checking for condoms and lube in James’ pocket. After all the lad had been waging some odd, esoteric campaign for months. Bears and metaphors and all sorts of subtle hints that had sailed right over his head, leaving the ground beneath his feet feeling less than solid. How the hell was he supposed to know what was going on tonight? It wasn’t his fault. he’d done most of his courting in dingy clubs where your feet stuck to the floor. Subtle didn’t really work when you had to yell to be heard over the sound of Northern Soul and Fleetwood Mac. 

“Not a plan per se,” James admitted as he shuffled incrementally closer, his voice dropping as the distance between them closed. “Pretty much running on instinct and unspent adrenaline. I’m always a bit wound up after a good performance. Never done this before though,” he murmured, long fingers reaching out to tangle with Robbie’s own.

“No, I think I might have noticed,” Robbie agreed faintly. “So what do you normally do?” he asked, his tongue heavy and thick against the roof of this mouth.

James drew in a sharp breath as something dark and powerful flared in his face. He pulled Robbie’s hands to his body, untangling their fingers, covering his hands with his own as he pressed them against his waist. He closed his eyes at the contact, leaning his forehead against Robbie’s as he let out a long, contented sigh. “Drive home. Get a beer. Potter around. Think of ways to spend all this nervous energy. With you,” James added softly, his eyes still closed.

“Christ,” Robbie muttered. There was that word again. It was the only word he could manage given the images in his head. Long fingers. Long, guitar playing fingers curled around flushed, leaking flesh. Curled around his own flesh.

He swallowed hard and drew in a shaky breath. His hands slid over the ridge of a hip. So bloody bony. So bloody perfect. 

So long desired and so damn unexpected. This morning he’d been suffering quietly through the agonies of unrequited love and now he had a lap full of limbs and absolutely not a single sensible thought in this head. It was like standing on a beach with the tide dragging around your heels, sands shifting, feet sinking until you were trapped, immobile. He pushed up into the weight where James’ head rested against his own. 

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted in a quiet voice.

“Oh Robbie,” James breathed gently, his tone tender and warm. Lips tickled as they grazed his cheek, making their way to their goal. Reaching his mouth James held himself still. And there they were, suspended in reverent tableaux, breathing softly each against the other.

Robbie risked a kiss. A quick, fleeting press of mouths that sent the butterflies racing all the way to his throat. Then another, lips catching, lingering in a gentle, careful exploration. James tasted faintly of beer and the ash dry tang of cigarettes. He pressed close, breathing in those delicate citrus hints, the scent settling him, arousing him. Such a perfectly contradictory response. 

The silk of James’ skin slid against his face, beneath his palms. Mouth watering at the thought that he could finally touch and taste to his heart’s content. He melted back against the sofa, James flowing with him, mouth soft against his own. So soft and warm. He was floating, drowning, sensation swimming all through him. It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. 

A large hand cupped his head, tipping his face, parting his lips and then all pretence of finesse was lost. They pressed together in a messy, heated rush that left him breathless and burning, flushed with high colour and high emotion. Arousal lay heavy in his stomach, the weight of it anchoring him as kisses flowed between them, ebbing and igniting in ever frantic waves. A sharp, greedy sound punctuated the silence as he mouthed at James neck. He shivered, clutching hard at a firm upper arm. Good God. He’d done that. To James.

“Tell me you’ll stay,” James said. Voice firm with demand, and just the hint of a question. Familiar assurance, nervous undertones. 

Robbie pulled back. Forced himself to really look at James. To see beyond the mussed hair and slick, shining lips, beyond the panting rise and fall of his chest. Because beneath all that he was trembling and lust darkened eyes never quite met his own. A surge of tenderness rolled through him and Robbie cupped James jaw, pressed a thumb against the corner of his mouth, stroking the bruised, blood flushed flesh. 

“You don’t want to wait?” he asked, fingers stroking James’ neck, raising the skin to goosebumps. 

James’ eyes closed and he drew in a long, steadying breath. “For what?” he replied simply.

The flat was quiet now, the stereo long since silenced. Robbie let his hands fall, resting his palms against the front of James’ thighs and they both watched as fingers his stroked, for a moment offering nothing but comfort. 

There was virtue in patience, in the slow, sweet delight of anticipation. In many ways they were so far beyond that. Months beyond it; years beyond it. But time was a funny thing. Didn’t always flow straight and smooth. He knew that better than most. They might have been moving toward this point for years, Might have walked side by side, learned the size and shape, the actualness of the other. But the heart so often took the longer, rougher path, emotions toiling and tarrying on the way. 

He smiled softly, waiting until James met his gaze. It would take time this. Learning to trust each other in lust. To know that hands shook with arousal, not fear. That the desperate clasp of limbs was fuelled by desire, not doubt. That nervousness was born of unfamiliarity not uncertainty. 

The eyes that found his were calm. Within them the man he knew and the lover he didn’t. Familiar and wonderfully, enticingly strange. 

“Stay,” James repeated, voice low but firm and sure.

It was oddly easy in the end. To lie down on cool sheets. To peel the lad out of those skin tight jeans and lose himself in the strong, supple muscles that were revealed. To twine together, sweat slicked and let careful, shy reverence vie with the fierce awkwardness of that first, hard lust. 

James was all movement beneath him, rocking and writhing. Legs gripping his thighs, arms pinning him close, hands pressing, stroking, directing. Robbie clung shamelessly, thrilled and captivated by the sight of James in all his pale perfection, by the heat and strength of his body. The wide-eyed, honest intensity of him shockingly real, and still it wasn’t enough. He could hear his own moans, the broken, wordless way he was pleading. The way his hands grasped and gripped, skittering clumsily over toned limbs. The way he cried out, for something, anything, everything.

It was over all too soon. A rush of messy euphoria that left them both shivery. He sank back to the bed weak and shaky, pressed his face into a pillow and tried to remember how to breathe. The intimacy of it all was frightening, that vulnerability after so long alone. Bareness so much more than clammy, cooling flesh. Bloody daft to be self-conscious now. To be scrabbling about for the discarded sheet, firm in the belief that covering his bare arse would cover the embarrassment. Would let him forget how brazenly he’d begged, how he’d keened, and whined and arched in to James’ touch. His cheeks flamed as he remembered the things he’d said, how he’d cried out. There was no way James wouldn’t know how much he’d longed for this, how desperate he’d been. How desperate he still was.

The covers settled over him with a soft susurration of warm air, drawn up and around them both by hands that were steadier than his own. An arm settled briefly around his waist as James jostled himself in close, the touch gone as quickly as it came. Gentle, cautious kisses peppered the skin of his shoulder. Noses bumped awkwardly as lips sought his own.

Ah damn, Robbie realised with a sigh, the lad was just as unsure. Course he was. Just because he’d spent the last year idolising James didn’t actually make him some sort of God. Eros or cupid or whatever. He’d suffer through the awkwardness of new lovers same as anyone else. And knowing James he was probably beyond nervous and half way into fretting by now. Daft sod that he was. Well, James had got them into bed, it was probably only fair he found a way make sure they stayed here. 

He turned his still mortified cheeks to meet James’ touch. The embarrassment fading beneath easy, languid kisses. James relaxed against him, gradually, tentatively reaching out. He pressed a hand to James chest, heartbeat fast and fleet, the contours of muscle a whole landscape he’d yet to learn. Fingers carded through his hair, stroked at his waist, settled in the small of his back as they nestled together. 

He didn’t say it. Neither did James. The words rose readily enough from his heart, but they lingered on his lips, the taste of them heavy and thick. Too sweet, too much, in the cloying, dark heat that lay between them. It was enough to just lie like this. To relearn the comfort and the quiet joy of lying with a lover. To drift off, sated and safe. 

Happy eyes and tousled hair greeted him in the cool, sharp light of morning. James settled close again, banishing the space they had found in sleep. Head resting against a shoulder, the heavy weight of it, wonderful and welcome. He teased at the flyaway blonde strands, pressed a kiss to James’ forehead. And it was just as brilliant as he’d imagined it to be. Seeing James like this. All drowsy and gentle. A softer form of his besuited sergeant. Something subtly beautiful that only he got to see. 

They lay in contended silence, James almost statue still. Soft puffs of breath against his neck the only sign of life. Surprising. The lad was usually all restless movement, brain and mouth working overtime when his body was still.

“Not a morning person then?” Robbie teased gently.

“Today? No,” James said simply pressing kiss to Robbie’s cheek. “I’m wallowing,” he added, an odd touch of pride in his voice. 

Pride over what Robbie had no idea, but he felt himself smile and pressed another kiss to James’ forehead, squeezing him close. Then, just because he could, he tilted James chin and offered another kiss to his lips. Then another.

“Mind you, I could stop wallowing at any point,” James offered, eyes widening, interest sparking, the long slide of a thigh emphasising his point.

“Good to know,” Robbie agreed as he pressed a hand to James’ hip, stilling the exploration. Time enough for that another day. He enjoyed sleepy morning sex, had more than a few fantasies about that actually. But lying here was it’s own pleasure. And soon enough his stomach would be wanting breakfast. He didn’t fancy killing the mood with a rumbling stomach. Not this early into, well into whatever this was. And James had to be craving a cigarette. The bed would still be waiting for them later on. When they could kiss in the kitchen, and he could set out to seduce, and James could teasingly resist. When they could lie together in glowing afternoon light. Love and laze the day away. 

They traded kisses and gentle barbs as the sun traced a placid path over the duvet. Bickering about the rights to the shower, about coffee and papers and toast. About the roles of host and guest. False divisions. Distinction created for no other reason than quiet debate and dispute. It was perfect and bloody amazing and he ever lost this it would break what was left of his heart.

James eventually slipped out of bed, hunting through the pockets of jeans and jacket until he found his cigarettes. The morning air that skittered into the room was briskly chill and Robbie shivered as a breeze made its way over the bed. He departed to the shower, letting the sluicing water warm him again. James’s shower gel was startlingly green. Some lime thing he’d seen on sale in the supermarket. Not the expensive, niche stuff he’d imagined the lad would use. He popped the cap and right there was that citrus smell. He was going to smell of James all day. The thought made his stomach swirl with something that seemed a lot like contentment. 

He padded into the kitchen, filling the kettle and settling against the counter. Down the hall the boiler kicked into life as James took his own shower. They ate breakfast in quiet domesticity. He with tea and toast, James with some yoghurt, muesli and fruit concoction that was right off the pages of a health magazine. Robbie eyed the various ingredients suspiciously, already knowing that they’d be making their way into his cupboards soon enough. Organic oats and sunflower seeds. Bloody hell. Brave new world didn’t cover it. 

He retreated to the front room with a coffee as James loaded the dishwasher. Outside the world was well into wakefulness, the steady hum of the city rising with each hour. Robbie wandered to the window, watching as a father chivvied two rugby kitted kids into a car.

Long arm arms reached around his waist, a messy kiss pressed to his neck. Riff roughened fingers tangled with his own and Robbie leant back, resting his weight against James’ firm strength. The words bubbled up again. But it was too much, and much too soon. 

He turned, busied his mouth with kissing instead. Revelling in the freedom to touch James as much as he wanted, his eager hands allowed to indulge, encouraged to indulge. To explore the curve of James’ arse, to slide fingers beneath the waistband of today’s distracting jeans and tease at warm flesh. To learn just how exciting he found the feel of firm, supple muscles. James was no better. Hands creeping under his shirt, sweeping across his back and thighs, cupping the bulge between his legs. Pushy so and so. 

James pulled away, gathering him into a loose hug, quietening the mood between them as fingers stroked the curve of an elbow. God he’d thought sleep rumpled was a good look, but this one could fast become his favourite. James all glassy eyed and pinked cheeked.

“You know I love you,” James murmured. It wasn’t a question. Course it wasn’t a question.

Robbie closed his eyes against the swell of pure, bright emotion. It was too soon, and it was almost too much. But that’s what you got being involved with a precocious bloody sod. 

“I should hope so,” Robbie muttered into the cotton of a t-shirt, “I’ve had quite enough of all these unrequited feelings. It’s not half as much fun as the films make it out to be.”

He felt James smile against his hair, lips brushing his ear. Message received then. James knew, and it was enough for now. The words would come later. In their own time. Some evening soon, over a companionable pint or curled up in front of the telly. When the words would stand on their own strength, and James wouldn’t be left wondering if they were only a grudging echo, the pressured counterpoint to his own admission. 

“What films have you been watching?” James challenged lightly. “The only ones that manufacture a plot from overblown emotion have subtitles. I can’t quite see you at a café table all _triste_ and _mélancolique_ with a copy of Derrida tucked under one arm.”

“Couldn’t do it,” Robbie said with mock regret, “no beret. Anyway,” he continued with a grin, “I’m not the one in this flat that would get cast as the lead in an art-house production.”

“Meaning?” James demanded without heat.

“You’re very good at brooding. Expressively,” Robbie retorted.

“I’m choosing not to take offence at that,” James informed him primly a moment later. “But only because I think that would involve moving.”

“Noted,” Robbie agreed with a gentle laugh. It was bloody fantastic this. All their usual bickering, wrapped up in this new, gentle intimacy. He rubbed his face against James shoulder, nuzzled his neck.

“Anyway, you‘re hardly one to talk,” James murmured. “I’ve seen you staring into the dregs of many a pint over the years.”

“Nah,” Robbie objected. “Geordie’s don’t brood. Biological impossibility. We only dwell. It’s less tortured. More manly.”

“Manly,” James said, tone all intrigued. “That so?” Teeth nipped lightly at his lobe and Robbie shivered slightly as their embrace tightened and lengthened. They lingered together, reluctant to part, learning the feel of each other, the feel of this thing. The low, thrilling burn of arousal set against an easy, familiar comfort. 

“Any chance I can persuade you back to bed?” James asked, his voice all warm and honeyed, velvet against his skin. “You can bring your manly dwellings if you want?”

“It’s a generous offer,” Robbie mused, “but you might have to convince me. I’m no pushover.”

“Oh, like that is it?” James asked his face alight with mischief and delight as he slipped easily into the game, a teasing hand finding its way to his nipples.

Christ. He’d only learnt that last night. And here they were stood in the front room, in strengthening spring sunshine and James was already trying to press the advantage. Robbie stifled his appreciative moan, schooling his face into a blank mask. Fingers teased, raising his flesh to a hard nub. He raised only an impassive eyebrow. Seducing James was one plan. Turned out letting himself be seduced was another. A much better one. Right achievement junkie James was, he’d get all sorts of pleasure out of it working for it. It was almost selfless really.

Fingers brushed his ribs, the caress tickling light, setting off a whole set of new, shivery sensations. Lips teased a path down his neck, seeking out those sweet spots with a dangerous hint of suction. The hand that snaked between his legs was knowing and sure. Robbie let himself be led back into the bedroom. Let himself fall back on to the bed. Fall into James, for James. Wholly and surely. And it was terrifyingly, dizzyingly, unbearably brilliant.

**Author's Note:**

> The muse for this story struck way back in June when Laurence Fox posted a delightful video of himself and Kevin Whately bopping along to Phil Collins. And it caused me to wonder if James would ever dance. This story is the result - my first ever Lewis/Hathaway fic in which we see the boys get together.
> 
> I'll post a chapter a day over the next week - the last chapter should be posted on Friday. If I can count. 
> 
> Sincere thanks as ever to Vix. This story is stronger for your comments and advice.


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